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+git for CVS users
+=================
+
+Git differs from CVS in that every working tree contains a repository with
+a full copy of the project history, and no repository is inherently more
+important than any other.  However, you can emulate the CVS model by
+designating a single shared repository which people can synchronize with;
+this document explains how to do that.
+
+Some basic familiarity with git is required.  This
+link:tutorial.html[tutorial introduction to git] should be sufficient.
+
+Developing against a shared repository
+--------------------------------------
+
+Suppose a shared repository is set up in /pub/repo.git on the host
+foo.com.  Then as an individual committer you can clone the shared
+repository over ssh with:
+
+------------------------------------------------
+$ git clone foo.com:/pub/repo.git/ my-project
+$ cd my-project
+------------------------------------------------
+
+and hack away.  The equivalent of `cvs update` is
+
+------------------------------------------------
+$ git pull origin
+------------------------------------------------
+
+which merges in any work that others might have done since the clone
+operation.  If there are uncommitted changes in your working tree, commit
+them first before running git pull.
+
+[NOTE]
+================================
+The `pull` command knows where to get updates from because of certain
+configuration variables that were set by the first `git clone`
+command; see `git config -l` and the gitlink:git-config[1] man
+page for details.
+================================
+
+You can update the shared repository with your changes by first committing
+your changes, and then using the gitlink:git-push[1] command:
+
+------------------------------------------------
+$ git push origin master
+------------------------------------------------
+
+to "push" those commits to the shared repository.  If someone else has
+updated the repository more recently, `git push`, like `cvs commit`, will
+complain, in which case you must pull any changes before attempting the
+push again.
+
+In the `git push` command above we specify the name of the remote branch
+to update (`master`).  If we leave that out, `git push` tries to update
+any branches in the remote repository that have the same name as a branch
+in the local repository.  So the last `push` can be done with either of:
+
+------------
+$ git push origin
+$ git push foo.com:/pub/project.git/
+------------
+
+as long as the shared repository does not have any branches
+other than `master`.
+
+Setting Up a Shared Repository
+------------------------------
+
+We assume you have already created a git repository for your project,
+possibly created from scratch or from a tarball (see the
+link:tutorial.html[tutorial]), or imported from an already existing CVS
+repository (see the next section).
+
+Assume your existing repo is at /home/alice/myproject.  Create a new "bare"
+repository (a repository without a working tree) and fetch your project into
+it:
+
+------------------------------------------------
+$ mkdir /pub/my-repo.git
+$ cd /pub/my-repo.git
+$ git --bare init --shared
+$ git --bare fetch /home/alice/myproject master:master
+------------------------------------------------
+
+Next, give every team member read/write access to this repository.  One
+easy way to do this is to give all the team members ssh access to the
+machine where the repository is hosted.  If you don't want to give them a
+full shell on the machine, there is a restricted shell which only allows
+users to do git pushes and pulls; see gitlink:git-shell[1].
+
+Put all the committers in the same group, and make the repository
+writable by that group:
+
+------------------------------------------------
+$ chgrp -R $group /pub/my-repo.git
+------------------------------------------------
+
+Make sure committers have a umask of at most 027, so that the directories
+they create are writable and searchable by other group members.
+
+Importing a CVS archive
+-----------------------
+
+First, install version 2.1 or higher of cvsps from
+link:http://www.cobite.com/cvsps/[http://www.cobite.com/cvsps/] and make
+sure it is in your path.  Then cd to a checked out CVS working directory
+of the project you are interested in and run gitlink:git-cvsimport[1]:
+
+-------------------------------------------
+$ git cvsimport -C <destination> <module>
+-------------------------------------------
+
+This puts a git archive of the named CVS module in the directory
+<destination>, which will be created if necessary.
+
+The import checks out from CVS every revision of every file.  Reportedly
+cvsimport can average some twenty revisions per second, so for a
+medium-sized project this should not take more than a couple of minutes.
+Larger projects or remote repositories may take longer.
+
+The main trunk is stored in the git branch named `origin`, and additional
+CVS branches are stored in git branches with the same names.  The most
+recent version of the main trunk is also left checked out on the `master`
+branch, so you can start adding your own changes right away.
+
+The import is incremental, so if you call it again next month it will
+fetch any CVS updates that have been made in the meantime.  For this to
+work, you must not modify the imported branches; instead, create new
+branches for your own changes, and merge in the imported branches as
+necessary.
+
+Advanced Shared Repository Management
+-------------------------------------
+
+Git allows you to specify scripts called "hooks" to be run at certain
+points.  You can use these, for example, to send all commits to the shared
+repository to a mailing list.  See link:hooks.html[Hooks used by git].
+
+You can enforce finer grained permissions using update hooks.  See
+link:howto/update-hook-example.txt[Controlling access to branches using
+update hooks].
+
+Providing CVS Access to a git Repository
+----------------------------------------
+
+It is also possible to provide true CVS access to a git repository, so
+that developers can still use CVS; see gitlink:git-cvsserver[1] for
+details.
+
+Alternative Development Models
+------------------------------
+
+CVS users are accustomed to giving a group of developers commit access to
+a common repository.  As we've seen, this is also possible with git.
+However, the distributed nature of git allows other development models,
+and you may want to first consider whether one of them might be a better
+fit for your project.
+
+For example, you can choose a single person to maintain the project's
+primary public repository.  Other developers then clone this repository
+and each work in their own clone.  When they have a series of changes that
+they're happy with, they ask the maintainer to pull from the branch
+containing the changes.  The maintainer reviews their changes and pulls
+them into the primary repository, which other developers pull from as
+necessary to stay coordinated.  The Linux kernel and other projects use
+variants of this model.
+
+With a small group, developers may just pull changes from each other's
+repositories without the need for a central maintainer.