SYNOPSIS
--------
+
+SSH:
+
[verse]
export CVS_SERVER=git-cvsserver
'cvs' -d :ext:user@server/path/repo.git co <HEAD_name>
+pserver (/etc/inetd.conf):
+
+[verse]
+cvspserver stream tcp nowait nobody /usr/bin/git-cvsserver git-cvsserver pserver
+
+Usage:
+
+[verse]
+'git-cvsserver' [options] [pserver|server] [<directory> ...]
+
+OPTIONS
+-------
+
+All these options obviously only make sense if enforced by the server side.
+They have been implemented to resemble the linkgit:git-daemon[1] options as
+closely as possible.
+
+--base-path <path>::
+Prepend 'path' to requested CVSROOT
+
+--strict-paths::
+Don't allow recursing into subdirectories
+
+--export-all::
+Don't check for `gitcvs.enabled` in config. You also have to specify a list
+of allowed directories (see below) if you want to use this option.
+
+--version, -V::
+Print version information and exit
+
+--help, -h, -H::
+Print usage information and exit
+
+<directory>::
+You can specify a list of allowed directories. If no directories
+are given, all are allowed. This is an additional restriction, gitcvs
+access still needs to be enabled by the `gitcvs.enabled` config option
+unless '--export-all' was given, too.
+
+
DESCRIPTION
-----------
cvspserver stream tcp nowait nobody git-cvsserver pserver
------
-Note: In some cases, you need to pass the 'pserver' argument twice for
-git-cvsserver to see it. So the line would look like
+Note: Some inetd servers let you specify the name of the executable
+independently of the value of argv[0] (i.e. the name the program assumes
+it was executed with). In this case the correct line in /etc/inetd.conf
+looks like
------
- cvspserver stream tcp nowait nobody git-cvsserver pserver pserver
+ cvspserver stream tcp nowait nobody /usr/bin/git-cvsserver git-cvsserver pserver
------
No special setup is needed for SSH access, other than having GIT tools
in the PATH. If you have clients that do not accept the CVS_SERVER
-env variable, you can rename git-cvsserver to cvs.
+environment variable, you can rename git-cvsserver to cvs.
+
+Note: Newer CVS versions (>= 1.12.11) also support specifying
+CVS_SERVER directly in CVSROOT like
+
+------
+cvs -d ":ext;CVS_SERVER=git-cvsserver:user@server/path/repo.git" co <HEAD_name>
+------
+This has the advantage that it will be saved in your 'CVS/Root' files and
+you don't need to worry about always setting the correct environment
+variable. SSH users restricted to git-shell don't need to override the default
+with CVS_SERVER (and shouldn't) as git-shell understands `cvs` to mean
+git-cvsserver and pretends that the other end runs the real cvs better.
--
2. For each repo that you want accessible from CVS you need to edit config in
the repo and add the following section.
SSH, the users of course also need write access to the git repository itself.
[[configaccessmethod]]
-All configuration variables can also be overriden for a specific method of
+All configuration variables can also be overridden for a specific method of
access. Valid method names are "ext" (for SSH access) and "pserver". The
following example configuration would disable pserver access while still
allowing access over SSH.
enabled=1
------
--
-3. On the client machine you need to set the following variables.
- CVSROOT should be set as per normal, but the directory should point at the
- appropriate git repo. For example:
+3. If you didn't specify the CVSROOT/CVS_SERVER directly in the checkout command,
+ automatically saving it in your 'CVS/Root' files, then you need to set them
+ explicitly in your environment. CVSROOT should be set as per normal, but the
+ directory should point at the appropriate git repo. As above, for SSH clients
+ _not_ restricted to git-shell, CVS_SERVER should be set to git-cvsserver.
+
--
-For SSH access, CVS_SERVER should be set to git-cvsserver
-
-Example:
-
------
export CVSROOT=:ext:user@server:/var/git/project.git
export CVS_SERVER=git-cvsserver
------
--
-4. For SSH clients that will make commits, make sure their .bashrc file
- sets the GIT_AUTHOR and GIT_COMMITTER variables.
+4. For SSH clients that will make commits, make sure their server-side
+ .ssh/environment files (or .bashrc, etc., according to their specific shell)
+ export appropriate values for GIT_AUTHOR_NAME, GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL,
+ GIT_COMMITTER_NAME, and GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL. For SSH clients whose login
+ shell is bash, .bashrc may be a reasonable alternative.
5. Clients should now be able to check out the project. Use the CVS 'module'
- name to indicate what GIT 'head' you want to check out. Example:
+ name to indicate what GIT 'head' you want to check out. This also sets the
+ name of your newly checked-out directory, unless you tell it otherwise with
+ `-d <dir_name>`. For example, this checks out 'master' branch to the
+ `project-master` directory:
+
------
cvs co -d project-master master
git-cvsserver uses one database per git head (i.e. CVS module) to
store information about the repository for faster access. The
-database doesn't contain any persitent data and can be completly
+database doesn't contain any persistent data and can be completely
regenerated from the git repository at any time. The database
needs to be updated (i.e. written to) after every commit.
That means that even if you offer only read access (e.g. by using
the pserver method), git-cvsserver should have write access to
the database to work reliably (otherwise you need to make sure
-that the database if up-to-date all the time git-cvsserver is run).
+that the database is up-to-date any time git-cvsserver is executed).
By default it uses SQLite databases in the git directory, named
`gitcvs.<module_name>.sqlite`. Note that the SQLite backend creates
gitcvs.dbname::
Database name. The exact meaning depends on the
- used database driver, for SQLite this is a filename.
+ selected database driver, for SQLite this is a filename.
Supports variable substitution (see below). May
not contain semicolons (`;`).
Default: '%Ggitcvs.%m.sqlite'
with 'DBD::SQLite', reported to work with
'DBD::Pg', and reported *not* to work with 'DBD::mysql'.
Please regard this as an experimental feature. May not
- contain double colons (`:`).
+ contain colons (`:`).
Default: 'SQLite'
gitcvs.dbuser::
Database password. Only useful if setting `dbdriver`, since
SQLite has no concept of database passwords.
+gitcvs.dbTableNamePrefix::
+ Database table name prefix. Supports variable substitution
+ (see below). Any non-alphabetic characters will be replaced
+ with underscores.
+
All variables can also be set per access method, see <<configaccessmethod,above>>.
Variable substitution
GIT
---
-Part of the gitlink:git[7] suite
+Part of the linkgit:git[7] suite