Unix client types

Generally, you can use both command-line and GUI oriented applications to access the CVS repositories (on Sarovar and elsewhere).

We have selected material that should help you with both the CLI version and the most popular GUI tools.

Command-line CVS

You will first need to install CVS, which should come prepackaged for all popular UNIX flavors. Further details on obtaining, compiling and installing CVS won't be covered here; see the CVS homepage for more information.
You can add your CVS configuration defaults to the ~/.cvsrc file. Here's our suggestion:

[ FILE ]   .cvsrc [-rw-r--r-- docelic docelic]

cvs -z3 diff -u update -Pd checkout -P

Anonymous (read-only) access

Anonymous, read-only CVS access requires no special setup, and you can check-out the project files like this:

export CVSROOT=:pserver:anonymous@cvs.PN.sarovar.org:/cvsroot/PN
cvs -z3 co MN

Where PN is the project Unix name, and the MN is a valid directory path in the project CVS (that means you can use "." as the MN to check-out all repository subdirectories or modules).

Developer (read-write, SSH) access

To authenticate for the developer CVS access and check out the initial repository tree, do the following:

export CVS_RSH=ssh
export CVSROOT=:ext:UN@cvs.PN.sarovar.org:/cvsroot/PN
cvs co MN

Where UN is your Sarovar account name (and may be omitted if it's the same as on your workstation). Notes for the PN and MN apply as above.

The SSH keys you uploaded will be used for authentication, and no manual password entry will ever be needed.
Since the CVS connection will be established over the SSH (Secure SHell) layer, at first connection attempt you will receive a warning about the unknown machine being contacted. Answer yes to add the machine to your list of known hosts (~/.ssh/known_hosts).

 In case the host cvs.PN.sarovar.org is not found, try simply using cvs.sarovar.org.

Once you check-out the working copy of a repository, specifying the -d option (or exporting CVSROOT) will no longer be neccessary; all the information will be retrieved from the local CVS* directories.
The basic commands you will most probably use are update, diff, add and remove. Use cvs --help COMMAND for details.

GUI CVS clients

Proceed with GUI CVS client setup only if you successfully used the command-line version, but still like GUI better.

CVS GUI: Cervisia

Here's how to set up the Cervisia CVS GUI client that comes with RedHat Linux, Debian GNU and other distributions:

Open Cervisia, select Repository -> Repositories. Add a new entry: in the Repository field enter everything from :ext to your project name (use CVSROOT above for reference). In the second field enter ssh.
People say picture tells more than a thousand words, so here's the screenshot you might be interested in.

Change settings: go to the Settings menu and choose the Configure Cervisia option.
First field should contain your userid@server, for eg: vpsuresh@cvs.smc.sarovar.org. In the second field provide path to your cvs executable.
Here's another screenshot

That's it! From the File menu, select the Open sandboxes option, then choose the directory where you checked out the files from server and you should be able to see the files. Right-clicking on a filename should open the list of possible actions. For example, here's the screenshot of the diff command on file gnome-build.HEAD.ml.po.

The Konqueror browser seems to integrate Cervisia, so you may use it to browse your CVS modules (see the 'red brick' icon in Konqueror.