Arthur de Jong

Using Secure Shell

cvsd is only recommended if you really want to use the pserver protocol and do not really value authentication or confidentiality. A better approach for a development repository would be to use ssh access:

export CVS_RSH=ssh
cvs -d <remotehost>:<remoterepositorypath> <whatever cvscommand>

Using this, you wouldn't need to use cvs login anymore because the authentication is done by ssh. No more repository password files even. In the most straightforward setup this would require shell accounts on the remote machine, but several setups are possible where only cvs access is possible (and even in a chroot jail). See the links below for more information for setting this up.

More information and links

• http://www.faqs.org/docs/Linux-mini/Secure-CVS-Pserver.html
  A Mini-HOWTO for setting up a secure cvs pserver using cvsd.
• http://ximbiot.com/cvs/
  the cvs homepage with a lot of information (searchable) with a FAQ, manual, downloads, etc.
• http://freshmeat.net/projects/cvsd/
  the cvsd freshmeat project page
• http://cvsauth.sourceforge.net/
  cvsauth is a wrapper for cvs which supports SSL with patched clients
• http://directory.fsf.org/cvsd.html
  the cvsd entry in the GNU Free Software Directory
• http://www.prima.eu.org/tobez/cvs-howto.html
  describing different ways of setting up remote cvs repositories.
• http://sabren.net/code/cvssh/
  a page about cvssh using a ssl tunnel between a cvs pserver and an simple ext mode client.