CVS tips

Install on a new client

Setup SSH login with empty password

Run ssh-keygen on client machine. Leave password fields empty.
Move to .ssh/id_rsa.pub to CVS server vis sftp
Add id_rsa.pub to the end of .ssh/authorized_keys using cat id_rsa.pub >> .ssh/authorized_keys

Setup CVS environment variables in .profile

export CVS_RSH=/usr/bin/ssh
export CVSROOT=:ext:peter@192.168.0.1:/home/cvsroot/

Import a new project

Create empty dummy folder in local CVS root. Should only contain source that you want to include in CVS.
cd to the dummy folder (because import works recursively)
Import folder
Add source that you want to include
Commit changes e.g. project root catalog
Use e.g. SmartCVS for GUI management

Example ...

cd cvsroot
mkdir project
cd project
cvs import project self start
cd cvsroot
cvs co project
cp -R project_source/* project
cd project
cvs add file.txt
cvs commit

Add folder to project

Non recursive

The default behaviour of cvs is to add non-recursively.

cvs add folder
cvs commit

Add folder recursively

A smart way of using find and xargs enables folders to be added recursively.

cvs add folder
find folder -type d -print | xargs cvs add
find folder -name CVS -prune -o -type f -print | xargs cvs add

An alternative way is to use grep utility.

find folder -type d -print | grep -v CVS | xargs cvs add
find folder -type f -print | grep -v CVS | xargs cvs add

Optionally with -n1 for xargs.

Add files to project

cvs add *.rb
cvs commit

Check log

Check commit messages for a file

cvs log <file>

References

CVS Manual