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App-Context-0.968
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/ App::adminguide::cvs

NAME

App::adminguide::cvs - Administration Guide for CVS

DESCRIPTION

The following is a list of installation stories for installing CVS correctly.

REFERENCES

CVS Home Page
  - https://www.cvshome.org/
Configuration of xinetd
  - http://www.sugoi.org/bits/index.php?bit_id=32

CVS INSTALLATION : 2004-08-06 : REDHAT LINUX

I wanted to move a CVS installation from a server we were decommissioning to a new server, and I wanted to get two things right this time (which I had neglected the first time around).

* cvspserver not running as root
* cvs using a CVS passwd file, not /etc/passwd

Furthermore, the old installation was on Solaris 2.7 which used an inetd configuration. My new installation would by on RedHat Linux 9 (2.4.21 kernel).

CVS software installation

I checked the version of CVS installed on the system.

cvs --version
rpm -q cvs

and found I had version 1.11.2 installed. I checked the CVS home page, and it alerted me to a vulnerability in CVS if this were exposed to the internet (which I had some sense I might do).

http://www.cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CAN-2004-0396

So I had to install 1.11.16 or greater (1.11 series) or 1.12.8 or greater (1.12 series). The latest releases are 1.12.9 and 1.11.17. I decided to go with an rpm installation rather than a source-based installation. I decided to go with the 1.11 series, which cvshome.org says is the "stable" version rather than the 1.12 version which cvshome.org says is an incremental feature version.

su -
cd /root
mkdir rpm
cd rpm
wget ftp://rpmfind.net/linux/fedora/core/updates/2/i386/cvs-1.11.17-2.i386.rpm
rpm --upgrade cvs-1.11.17-2.i386.rpm

But then "cvs --version" caused the following error.

cvs: relocation error: cvs: undefined symbol: GSS_C_NT_HOSTBASED_SERVICE

So I decided to go with the RPM from cvshome.org rather than from Fedora.

wget https://ccvs.cvshome.org/files/documents/19/360/cvs-1.11.17-1.i386.rpm
rpm --upgrade cvs-1.11.17-1.i386.rpm

This gave me the following error.

package cvs-1.11.17-2 (which is newer than cvs-1.11.17-1) is already installed

So I did

rpm --upgrade --force cvs-1.11.17-1.i386.rpm

and that did the trick, as verified by

rpm -q cvs
cvs --version

If that had not worked, I would have compiled my own version from sources, but I would have to be sure to use ./configure --prefix=/usr so that the binaries would overwrite the installed binaries rather than creating another version in /usr/local.

Somewhere else I read that I need to set the setgid bit on the cvs binary.

chmod 2755 /usr/bin/cvs

Users and Groups

We use NIS, so I verified that we have both the cvs user and group defined.

ypcat passwd | grep cvs
ypcat group | grep cvs

Otherwise, I would have verified that in the /etc/passwd and /etc/group files and created them if necessary.

CVSROOT

I chose /usr/mycompany/cvs (where "mycompany" is replaced with a name for our company) for all CVS files (i.e. CVSROOT).

cd /usr/mycompany
mkdir cvs
chown cvs cvs
chgrp cvs cvs
chmod 775 cvs
chmod g+s cvs

We use Bash and Korn shell, so I added the following lines to "/etc/profile" so that the CVSROOT variable is available to all users.

CVSROOT=/usr/mycompany/cvs
export CVSROOT

Then I ran the same commands in my current shell to set CVSROOT for the current session.

Initializing the CVS Repository

I initialized the CVS Repository (/usr/mycompany/cvs).

su - cvs
cvs init

Then I created the CVS password file.

cd ~
mkdir src
cd src
cvs co CVSROOT
cd CVSROOT
touch passwd
cvs add passwd
cvs update
cvs commit -m "new" passwd

vi checkoutlist
# add "passwd" as the last line
cvs commit -m "added passwd to list of CVSROOT files" checkoutlist

Then exit as the "cvs" user.

exit

Installing cvspasswd and adding users

I got it from here.

http://www.sugoi.org/bits/download/cvspasswd

But I put it in a distribution on CPAN called App-admin. So you can install it this way.

perl -MCPAN -e "install App-admin"

In any case, make sure it is in your path (i.e. /usr/local/bin). Then add users.

cvspasswd joe    joespw7
cvspasswd mike   m1k31sgr3a7
cvspasswd nellie whoa_

Configure xinetd

On Solaris, I just needed to add a line to /etc/inetd.conf which looked like this. (This configures "inetd", the internetworking daemon.)

cvspserver stream tcp nowait root /usr/bin/cvs cvs --allow-root=/usr/mycompany/cvs pserver

However, on Linux I have to configure xinetd (an enhanced version of "inetd").

cd /etc/xinetd.d
vi cvs

I put the following in the file, with my server's actual IP address instead of "10.10.10.10".

service cvspserver
{
    disable         = no
    socket_type     = stream
    wait            = no
    user            = cvs
    group           = cvs
    log_type        = FILE /var/log/cvspserver
    protocol        = tcp
    env             = '$HOME=/usr/mycompany/cvs'
    bind            = 10.10.10.10
    log_on_failure += USERID
    port            = 2401
    server          = /usr/bin/cvs
    server_args     = -f --allow-root=/usr/mycompany/cvs pserver
}

Then I restart xinetd.

pkill -HUP xinetd

Verification

Then I went to another server on the network.

cd ~
mkdir src
cd src
cvs -d :pserver:mike@cvshost:/usr/mycompany/cvs login
cvs -d :pserver:mike@cvshost:/usr/mycompany/cvs co CVSROOT
# it worked great, so I can remove it ...
rm -rf CVSROOT

Moving the CVS data

I now had to move the data from my old CVS server.

ssh oldcvshost
su -
cd /usr/mycompany/cvs
find project1 project2 project3 -print | cpio -ocv | gzip > cvs.cpio.gz
scp cvs.cpio.gz mike@cvshost:.
ssh mike@cvshost
su -
cd /usr/mycompany/cvs
mv ~mike/cvs.cpio.gz .
gunzip < cvs.cpio.gz | cpio -idcuvm