Setting up a CVS server on Ubuntu

Installing a local CVS server can be really useful although you do not have huge information to control or many people working on the same project. You can just want to have controlled all your documents. For this case and many others, you can quickly set up a version controller such as CVS.

So let's get started by installing the CVS client and server (Ubuntu Server 12.10). During the installation, you have to choose a name for your repository (or repositories). In my case I went with "myrepos".

$ sudo aptitude install cvs cvsd

Then you have to initialize the repository and change the directory where CVS lock files will be dropped off (instead of directly in the repository by default). Remember to create that new directory.

$ sudo cvs -d /var/lib/cvsd/myrepos init

$ sudo vim /var/lib/cvsd/myrepos/CVSROOT/config
...
LockDir=/tmp/myrepos

$ sudo mkdir /var/lib/cvsd/tmp/myrepos

Now you only have to create an user for the repository and modify its owner.

$ sudo cvsd-passwd /var/lib/cvsd/myrepos javi
/usr/sbin/cvsd-passwd: adding user 'javi' to '/var/lib/cvsd/myrepos/CVSROOT/passwd'

$ sudo chown -R cvsd:cvsd /var/lib/cvsd

Let's restart the server and check it out from the localhost.

$ sudo /etc/init.d/cvsd restart

$ sudo cvs -d :pserver:javi@localhost:/myrepos login
Logging in to :pserver:javi@localhost:2401/myrepos
CVS password: