# CVS pserver



## oobayly (Feb 10, 2010)

I've been trying to get cvs pserver to work on FreeBSD 7.2, with no luck. I installed the cvsd port, but wasn't able to connect. Using telnet failed too.
I tried simplifying matters using inet.d, but again it didn't work. This time when I telneted to the cvspserver port, I got the following output:

```
# telnet localhost cvspserver
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
Usage: cvs [cvs-options] command [command-options-and-arguments]
  where cvs-options are -q, -n, etc.
    (specify --help-options for a list of options)
  where command is add, admin, etc.
    (specify --help-commands for a list of commands
     or --help-synonyms for a list of command synonyms)
  where command-options-and-arguments depend on the specific command
    (specify -H followed by a command name for command-specific help)
  Specify --help to receive this message

The Concurrent Versions System (CVS) is a tool for version control.
For CVS updates and additional information, see
    the CVS home page at http://cvs.nongnu.org/
Connection closed by foreign host.
```

That's the output of /usr/bin/cvs when used with an incorrect argument. So, for some reason my version of cvs doesn't appear to support the --allow-root switch.


```
# cvs --version

Concurrent Versions System (CVS) 1.11.22.1-FreeBSD (client/server)

Copyright (C) 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

Senior active maintainers include Larry Jones, Derek R. Price,
and Mark D. Baushke.  Please see the AUTHORS and README files from the CVS
distribution kit for a complete list of contributors and copyrights.

CVS may be copied only under the terms of the GNU General Public License,
a copy of which can be found with the CVS distribution kit.

Specify the --help option for further information about CVS
```

Any suggestions?
John


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## DutchDaemon (Feb 10, 2010)

Shouldn't you set the CVSROOT or the CVS_SERVER variable in the environment and just run the cvs commands you want? 

http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?...h=FreeBSD+8.0-RELEASE&format=html#ENVIRONMENT


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## oobayly (Feb 10, 2010)

Sure, but I'm having issues with getting the pserver to listen for incoming connections, so that I can check out files from my desktop machine.

Ah, just seen that I managed to cut off the "pserver" flag in my /etc/inet.d entry :OO That appears to have done the job. Funny, the man pages didn't have any mention about the --allow-root flag, so I assumed that it had been removed.

As for the cvsd package, it's not quite as automated as the was originally expected by the author. To get the chroot environment working, a great deal of symlinks need to be created.

Yes, I know the pserver authentication is inherently insecure, but it's for use solely in our (small) office. For access from the outside world, I use ssh.


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