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Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/git-cvsserver.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/git-cvsserver.txt | 173 |
1 files changed, 123 insertions, 50 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/git-cvsserver.txt b/Documentation/git-cvsserver.txt index 785779e221..4961f1abda 100644 --- a/Documentation/git-cvsserver.txt +++ b/Documentation/git-cvsserver.txt @@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ git-cvsserver(1) NAME ---- -git-cvsserver - A CVS server emulator for git +git-cvsserver - A CVS server emulator for Git SYNOPSIS -------- @@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ cvspserver stream tcp nowait nobody /usr/bin/git-cvsserver git-cvsserver pserver Usage: [verse] -'git cvsserver' [options] [pserver|server] [<directory> ...] +'git-cvsserver' [options] [pserver|server] [<directory> ...] OPTIONS ------- @@ -60,7 +60,7 @@ unless '--export-all' was given, too. DESCRIPTION ----------- -This application is a CVS emulation layer for git. +This application is a CVS emulation layer for Git. It is highly functional. However, not all methods are implemented, and for those methods that are implemented, @@ -72,19 +72,16 @@ plugin. Most functionality works fine with both of these clients. LIMITATIONS ----------- -Currently cvsserver works over SSH connections for read/write clients, and -over pserver for anonymous CVS access. +CVS clients cannot tag, branch or perform Git merges. -CVS clients cannot tag, branch or perform GIT merges. - -'git-cvsserver' maps GIT branches to CVS modules. This is very different +'git-cvsserver' maps Git branches to CVS modules. This is very different from what most CVS users would expect since in CVS modules usually represent one or more directories. INSTALLATION ------------ -1. If you are going to offer anonymous CVS access via pserver, add a line in +1. If you are going to offer CVS access via pserver, add a line in /etc/inetd.conf like + -- @@ -101,7 +98,39 @@ looks like 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 + +Only anonymous access is provided by pserve by default. To commit you +will have to create pserver accounts, simply add a gitcvs.authdb +setting in the config file of the repositories you want the cvsserver +to allow writes to, for example: + +------ + + [gitcvs] + authdb = /etc/cvsserver/passwd + +------ +The format of these files is username followed by the encrypted password, +for example: + +------ + myuser:$1Oyx5r9mdGZ2 + myuser:$1$BA)@$vbnMJMDym7tA32AamXrm./ +------ +You can use the 'htpasswd' facility that comes with Apache to make these +files, but Apache's MD5 crypt method differs from the one used by most C +library's crypt() function, so don't use the -m option. + +Alternatively you can produce the password with perl's crypt() operator: +----- + perl -e 'my ($user, $pass) = @ARGV; printf "%s:%s\n", $user, crypt($user, $pass)' $USER password +----- + +Then provide your password via the pserver method, for example: +------ + cvs -d:pserver:someuser:somepassword <at> server/path/repo.git co <HEAD_name> +------ +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 environment variable, you can rename 'git-cvsserver' to `cvs`. @@ -131,9 +160,9 @@ with CVS_SERVER (and shouldn't) as 'git-shell' understands `cvs` to mean Note: you need to ensure each user that is going to invoke 'git-cvsserver' has write access to the log file and to the database (see <<dbbackend,Database Backend>>. If you want to offer write access over -SSH, the users of course also need write access to the git repository itself. +SSH, the users of course also need write access to the Git repository itself. -You also need to ensure that each repository is "bare" (without a git index +You also need to ensure that each repository is "bare" (without a Git index file) for `cvs commit` to work. See linkgit:gitcvs-migration[7]. [[configaccessmethod]] @@ -152,7 +181,7 @@ allowing access over SSH. 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 + 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'. + -- @@ -168,7 +197,7 @@ allowing access over SSH. 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. This also sets the + 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: @@ -181,11 +210,10 @@ allowing access over SSH. Database Backend ---------------- -'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 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. +'git-cvsserver' uses one database per Git head (i.e. CVS module) to +store information about the repository to maintain consistent +CVS revision numbers. The database needs to be +updated (i.e. written to) after every commit. If the commit is done directly by using `git` (as opposed to using 'git-cvsserver') the update will need to happen on the @@ -197,13 +225,25 @@ the pserver method), 'git-cvsserver' should have write access to the database to work reliably (otherwise you need to make sure that the database is up-to-date any time 'git-cvsserver' is executed). -By default it uses SQLite databases in the git directory, named +By default it uses SQLite databases in the Git directory, named `gitcvs.<module_name>.sqlite`. Note that the SQLite backend creates temporary files in the same directory as the database file on write so it might not be enough to grant the users using 'git-cvsserver' write access to the database file without granting them write access to the directory, too. +The database can not be reliably regenerated in a +consistent form after the branch it is tracking has changed. +Example: For merged branches, 'git-cvsserver' only tracks +one branch of development, and after a 'git merge' an +incrementally updated database may track a different branch +than a database regenerated from scratch, causing inconsistent +CVS revision numbers. `git-cvsserver` has no way of knowing which +branch it would have picked if it had been run incrementally +pre-merge. So if you have to fully or partially (from old +backup) regenerate the database, you should be suspicious +of pre-existing CVS sandboxes. + You can configure the database backend with the following configuration variables: @@ -251,14 +291,14 @@ Variable substitution In `dbdriver` and `dbuser` you can use the following variables: %G:: - git directory name + Git directory name %g:: - git directory name, where all characters except for + Git directory name, where all characters except for alpha-numeric ones, `.`, and `-` are replaced with `_` (this should make it easier to use the directory name in a filename if wanted) %m:: - CVS module/git head name + CVS module/Git head name %a:: access method (one of "ext" or "pserver") %u:: @@ -266,6 +306,21 @@ In `dbdriver` and `dbuser` you can use the following variables: If no name can be determined, the numeric uid is used. +ENVIRONMENT +----------- + +These variables obviate the need for command-line options in some +circumstances, allowing easier restricted usage through git-shell. + +GIT_CVSSERVER_BASE_PATH takes the place of the argument to --base-path. + +GIT_CVSSERVER_ROOT specifies a single-directory whitelist. The +repository must still be configured to allow access through +git-cvsserver, as described above. + +When these environment variables are set, the corresponding +command-line arguments may not be used. + Eclipse CVS Client Notes ------------------------ @@ -283,7 +338,7 @@ To get a checkout with the Eclipse CVS client: Protocol notes: If you are using anonymous access via pserver, just select that. Those using SSH access should choose the 'ext' protocol, and configure 'ext' access on the Preferences->Team->CVS->ExtConnection pane. Set CVS_SERVER to -"'git cvsserver'". Note that password support is not good when using 'ext', +"`git cvsserver`". Note that password support is not good when using 'ext', you will definitely want to have SSH keys setup. Alternatively, you can just use the non-standard extssh protocol that Eclipse @@ -304,6 +359,43 @@ Operations supported All the operations required for normal use are supported, including checkout, diff, status, update, log, add, remove, commit. + +Most CVS command arguments that read CVS tags or revision numbers +(typically -r) work, and also support any git refspec +(tag, branch, commit ID, etc). +However, CVS revision numbers for non-default branches are not well +emulated, and cvs log does not show tags or branches at +all. (Non-main-branch CVS revision numbers superficially resemble CVS +revision numbers, but they actually encode a git commit ID directly, +rather than represent the number of revisions since the branch point.) + +Note that there are two ways to checkout a particular branch. +As described elsewhere on this page, the "module" parameter +of cvs checkout is interpreted as a branch name, and it becomes +the main branch. It remains the main branch for a given sandbox +even if you temporarily make another branch sticky with +cvs update -r. Alternatively, the -r argument can indicate +some other branch to actually checkout, even though the module +is still the "main" branch. Tradeoffs (as currently +implemented): Each new "module" creates a new database on disk with +a history for the given module, and after the database is created, +operations against that main branch are fast. Or alternatively, +-r doesn't take any extra disk space, but may be significantly slower for +many operations, like cvs update. + +If you want to refer to a git refspec that has characters that are +not allowed by CVS, you have two options. First, it may just work +to supply the git refspec directly to the appropriate CVS -r argument; +some CVS clients don't seem to do much sanity checking of the argument. +Second, if that fails, you can use a special character escape mechanism +that only uses characters that are valid in CVS tags. A sequence +of 4 or 5 characters of the form (underscore (`"_"`), dash (`"-"`), +one or two characters, and dash (`"-"`)) can encode various characters based +on the one or two letters: `"s"` for slash (`"/"`), `"p"` for +period (`"."`), `"u"` for underscore (`"_"`), or two hexadecimal digits +for any byte value at all (typically an ASCII number, or perhaps a part +of a UTF-8 encoded character). + Legacy monitoring operations are not supported (edit, watch and related). Exports and tagging (tags and branches) are not supported at this stage. @@ -311,19 +403,16 @@ CRLF Line Ending Conversions ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ By default the server leaves the '-k' mode blank for all files, -which causes the cvs client to treat them as a text files, subject -to crlf conversion on some platforms. +which causes the CVS client to treat them as a text files, subject +to end-of-line conversion on some platforms. -You can make the server use `crlf` attributes to set the '-k' modes -for files by setting the `gitcvs.usecrlfattr` config variable. -In this case, if `crlf` is explicitly unset ('-crlf'), then the -server will set '-kb' mode for binary files. If `crlf` is set, -then the '-k' mode will explicitly be left blank. See -also linkgit:gitattributes[5] for more information about the `crlf` -attribute. +You can make the server use the end-of-line conversion attributes to +set the '-k' modes for files by setting the `gitcvs.usecrlfattr` +config variable. See linkgit:gitattributes[5] for more information +about end-of-line conversion. Alternatively, if `gitcvs.usecrlfattr` config is not enabled -or if the `crlf` attribute is unspecified for a filename, then +or the attributes do not allow automatic detection for a filename, then the server uses the `gitcvs.allbinary` config for the default setting. If `gitcvs.allbinary` is set, then file not otherwise specified will default to '-kb' mode. Otherwise the '-k' mode @@ -339,22 +428,6 @@ Dependencies ------------ 'git-cvsserver' depends on DBD::SQLite. -Copyright and Authors ---------------------- - -This program is copyright The Open University UK - 2006. - -Authors: - -- Martyn Smith <martyn@catalyst.net.nz> -- Martin Langhoff <martin@catalyst.net.nz> - -with ideas and patches from participants of the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>. - -Documentation --------------- -Documentation by Martyn Smith <martyn@catalyst.net.nz>, Martin Langhoff <martin@catalyst.net.nz>, and Matthias Urlichs <smurf@smurf.noris.de>. - GIT --- Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite |