6 git-cvsserver - A CVS server emulator for git
14 export CVS_SERVER=git-cvsserver
15 'cvs' -d :ext:user@server/path/repo.git co <HEAD_name>
17 pserver (/etc/inetd.conf):
20 cvspserver stream tcp nowait nobody /usr/bin/git-cvsserver git-cvsserver pserver
25 'git-cvsserver' [options] [pserver|server] [<directory> ...]
30 All these options obviously only make sense if enforced by the server side.
31 They have been implemented to resemble the linkgit:git-daemon[1] options as
35 Prepend 'path' to requested CVSROOT
38 Don't allow recursing into subdirectories
41 Don't check for `gitcvs.enabled` in config. You also have to specify a list
42 of allowed directories (see below) if you want to use this option.
46 Print version information and exit
51 Print usage information and exit
54 You can specify a list of allowed directories. If no directories
55 are given, all are allowed. This is an additional restriction, gitcvs
56 access still needs to be enabled by the `gitcvs.enabled` config option
57 unless '--export-all' was given, too.
63 This application is a CVS emulation layer for git.
65 It is highly functional. However, not all methods are implemented,
66 and for those methods that are implemented,
67 not all switches are implemented.
69 Testing has been done using both the CLI CVS client, and the Eclipse CVS
70 plugin. Most functionality works fine with both of these clients.
75 Currently cvsserver works over SSH connections for read/write clients, and
76 over pserver for anonymous CVS access.
78 CVS clients cannot tag, branch or perform GIT merges.
80 git-cvsserver maps GIT branches to CVS modules. This is very different
81 from what most CVS users would expect since in CVS modules usually represent
82 one or more directories.
87 1. If you are going to offer anonymous CVS access via pserver, add a line in
92 cvspserver stream tcp nowait nobody git-cvsserver pserver
95 Note: Some inetd servers let you specify the name of the executable
96 independently of the value of argv[0] (i.e. the name the program assumes
97 it was executed with). In this case the correct line in /etc/inetd.conf
101 cvspserver stream tcp nowait nobody /usr/bin/git-cvsserver git-cvsserver pserver
104 No special setup is needed for SSH access, other than having GIT tools
105 in the PATH. If you have clients that do not accept the CVS_SERVER
106 environment variable, you can rename git-cvsserver to cvs.
108 Note: Newer CVS versions (>= 1.12.11) also support specifying
109 CVS_SERVER directly in CVSROOT like
112 cvs -d ":ext;CVS_SERVER=git-cvsserver:user@server/path/repo.git" co <HEAD_name>
114 This has the advantage that it will be saved in your 'CVS/Root' files and
115 you don't need to worry about always setting the correct environment
116 variable. SSH users restricted to git-shell don't need to override the default
117 with CVS_SERVER (and shouldn't) as git-shell understands `cvs` to mean
118 git-cvsserver and pretends that the other end runs the real cvs better.
120 2. For each repo that you want accessible from CVS you need to edit config in
121 the repo and add the following section.
127 # optional for debugging
128 logfile=/path/to/logfile
131 Note: you need to ensure each user that is going to invoke git-cvsserver has
132 write access to the log file and to the database (see
133 <<dbbackend,Database Backend>>. If you want to offer write access over
134 SSH, the users of course also need write access to the git repository itself.
136 You also need to ensure that each repository is "bare" (without a git index
137 file) for `cvs commit` to work. See linkgit:gitcvs-migration[7].
139 [[configaccessmethod]]
140 All configuration variables can also be overridden for a specific method of
141 access. Valid method names are "ext" (for SSH access) and "pserver". The
142 following example configuration would disable pserver access while still
143 allowing access over SSH.
152 3. If you didn't specify the CVSROOT/CVS_SERVER directly in the checkout command,
153 automatically saving it in your 'CVS/Root' files, then you need to set them
154 explicitly in your environment. CVSROOT should be set as per normal, but the
155 directory should point at the appropriate git repo. As above, for SSH clients
156 _not_ restricted to git-shell, CVS_SERVER should be set to git-cvsserver.
160 export CVSROOT=:ext:user@server:/var/git/project.git
161 export CVS_SERVER=git-cvsserver
164 4. For SSH clients that will make commits, make sure their server-side
165 .ssh/environment files (or .bashrc, etc., according to their specific shell)
166 export appropriate values for GIT_AUTHOR_NAME, GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL,
167 GIT_COMMITTER_NAME, and GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL. For SSH clients whose login
168 shell is bash, .bashrc may be a reasonable alternative.
170 5. Clients should now be able to check out the project. Use the CVS 'module'
171 name to indicate what GIT 'head' you want to check out. This also sets the
172 name of your newly checked-out directory, unless you tell it otherwise with
173 `-d <dir_name>`. For example, this checks out 'master' branch to the
174 `project-master` directory:
177 cvs co -d project-master master
184 git-cvsserver uses one database per git head (i.e. CVS module) to
185 store information about the repository for faster access. The
186 database doesn't contain any persistent data and can be completely
187 regenerated from the git repository at any time. The database
188 needs to be updated (i.e. written to) after every commit.
190 If the commit is done directly by using git (as opposed to
191 using git-cvsserver) the update will need to happen on the
192 next repository access by git-cvsserver, independent of
193 access method and requested operation.
195 That means that even if you offer only read access (e.g. by using
196 the pserver method), git-cvsserver should have write access to
197 the database to work reliably (otherwise you need to make sure
198 that the database is up-to-date any time git-cvsserver is executed).
200 By default it uses SQLite databases in the git directory, named
201 `gitcvs.<module_name>.sqlite`. Note that the SQLite backend creates
202 temporary files in the same directory as the database file on
203 write so it might not be enough to grant the users using
204 git-cvsserver write access to the database file without granting
205 them write access to the directory, too.
207 You can configure the database backend with the following
208 configuration variables:
210 Configuring database backend
211 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
213 git-cvsserver uses the Perl DBI module. Please also read
214 its documentation if changing these variables, especially
215 about `DBI->connect()`.
218 Database name. The exact meaning depends on the
219 selected database driver, for SQLite this is a filename.
220 Supports variable substitution (see below). May
221 not contain semicolons (`;`).
222 Default: '%Ggitcvs.%m.sqlite'
225 Used DBI driver. You can specify any available driver
226 for this here, but it might not work. cvsserver is tested
227 with 'DBD::SQLite', reported to work with
228 'DBD::Pg', and reported *not* to work with 'DBD::mysql'.
229 Please regard this as an experimental feature. May not
230 contain colons (`:`).
234 Database user. Only useful if setting `dbdriver`, since
235 SQLite has no concept of database users. Supports variable
236 substitution (see below).
239 Database password. Only useful if setting `dbdriver`, since
240 SQLite has no concept of database passwords.
242 gitcvs.dbTableNamePrefix::
243 Database table name prefix. Supports variable substitution
244 (see below). Any non-alphabetic characters will be replaced
247 All variables can also be set per access method, see <<configaccessmethod,above>>.
249 Variable substitution
250 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
251 In `dbdriver` and `dbuser` you can use the following variables:
256 git directory name, where all characters except for
257 alpha-numeric ones, `.`, and `-` are replaced with
258 `_` (this should make it easier to use the directory
259 name in a filename if wanted)
261 CVS module/git head name
263 access method (one of "ext" or "pserver")
265 Name of the user running git-cvsserver.
266 If no name can be determined, the
269 Eclipse CVS Client Notes
270 ------------------------
272 To get a checkout with the Eclipse CVS client:
274 1. Select "Create a new project -> From CVS checkout"
275 2. Create a new location. See the notes below for details on how to choose the
277 3. Browse the 'modules' available. It will give you a list of the heads in
278 the repository. You will not be able to browse the tree from there. Only
280 4. Pick 'HEAD' when it asks what branch/tag to check out. Untick the
281 "launch commit wizard" to avoid committing the .project file.
283 Protocol notes: If you are using anonymous access via pserver, just select that.
284 Those using SSH access should choose the 'ext' protocol, and configure 'ext'
285 access on the Preferences->Team->CVS->ExtConnection pane. Set CVS_SERVER to
286 'git-cvsserver'. Note that password support is not good when using 'ext',
287 you will definitely want to have SSH keys setup.
289 Alternatively, you can just use the non-standard extssh protocol that Eclipse
290 offer. In that case CVS_SERVER is ignored, and you will have to replace
291 the cvs utility on the server with git-cvsserver or manipulate your `.bashrc`
292 so that calling 'cvs' effectively calls git-cvsserver.
294 Clients known to work
295 ---------------------
297 - CVS 1.12.9 on Debian
298 - CVS 1.11.17 on MacOSX (from Fink package)
299 - Eclipse 3.0, 3.1.2 on MacOSX (see Eclipse CVS Client Notes)
305 All the operations required for normal use are supported, including
306 checkout, diff, status, update, log, add, remove, commit.
307 Legacy monitoring operations are not supported (edit, watch and related).
308 Exports and tagging (tags and branches) are not supported at this stage.
310 CRLF Line Ending Conversions
311 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
313 By default the server leaves the '-k' mode blank for all files,
314 which causes the cvs client to treat them as a text files, subject
315 to crlf conversion on some platforms.
317 You can make the server use `crlf` attributes to set the '-k' modes
318 for files by setting the `gitcvs.usecrlfattr` config variable.
319 In this case, if `crlf` is explicitly unset ('-crlf'), then the
320 server will set '-kb' mode for binary files. If `crlf` is set,
321 then the '-k' mode will explicitly be left blank. See
322 also linkgit:gitattributes[5] for more information about the `crlf`
325 Alternatively, if `gitcvs.usecrlfattr` config is not enabled
326 or if the `crlf` attribute is unspecified for a filename, then
327 the server uses the `gitcvs.allbinary` config for the default setting.
328 If `gitcvs.allbinary` is set, then file not otherwise
329 specified will default to '-kb' mode. Otherwise the '-k' mode
330 is left blank. But if `gitcvs.allbinary` is set to "guess", then
331 the correct '-k' mode will be guessed based on the contents of
334 For best consistency with cvs, it is probably best to override the
335 defaults by setting `gitcvs.usecrlfattr` to true,
336 and `gitcvs.allbinary` to "guess".
341 git-cvsserver depends on DBD::SQLite.
343 Copyright and Authors
344 ---------------------
346 This program is copyright The Open University UK - 2006.
350 - Martyn Smith <martyn@catalyst.net.nz>
351 - Martin Langhoff <martin@catalyst.net.nz>
353 with ideas and patches from participants of the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.
357 Documentation by Martyn Smith <martyn@catalyst.net.nz>, Martin Langhoff <martin@catalyst.net.nz>, and Matthias Urlichs <smurf@smurf.noris.de>.
361 Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite