CVS is suitable for synchronization purposes if individual files are edited frequently and are stored in a file format, such as ASCII text or program source text. The use of CVS for synchronizing data in other formats, such as JPEG files, is possible, but leads to large amounts of data, because all variants of a file are stored permanently on the CVS server. In such cases, most of the capabilities of CVS cannot be used. The use of CVS for synchronizing files is only possible if all workstations can access the same server.
The server is the host on which all valid files are located, including the latest versions of all files. Any stationary workstation can be used as a server. If possible, the data of the CVS repository should be included in regular backups.
When configuring a CVS server, it might be a
good idea to grant users access to the server via
SSH. If the user is known to the server as
tux
and the CVS software is installed
on the server as well as on the client, the following
environment variables must be set on the client side:
CVS_RSH=ssh CVS_ROOT=tux@server:/serverdir
The command cvs init
can be used
to initialize the CVS server from the client
side. This needs to be done only once.
Finally, the synchronization must be assigned a name. Select or create a
directory on the client exclusively to contain files to manage with
CVS (the directory can also be empty). The name
of the directory is also the name of the synchronization. In this
example, the directory is called synchome
. Change to
this directory and enter the following command to set the synchronization
name to synchome
:
cvs import synchome tux wilber
Many CVS commands require a comment. For this
purpose, CVS starts an editor (the editor
defined in the environment variable $EDITOR
or
vi if no editor was defined). The editor call
can be circumvented by entering the comment in advance on the command line,
such as in the following example:
cvs import -m 'this is a test' synchome tux wilber
The synchronization repository can now be checked
out from all hosts with
cvs co synchome
.
This creates a new subdirectory synchome
on the client.
To commit your changes to the server, change to the directory
synchome
(or one of its subdirectories) and enter
cvs commit
.
By default, all files (including subdirectories) are committed to the
server. To commit only individual files or directories, specify them as in
cvs commit file1 directory1
.
New files and directories
must be added to the repository with a command like
cvs add file1 directory1
before they are committed to the server.
Subsequently, commit the newly added files and directories with
cvs commit file1 directory1
.
If you change to another workstation, check out the synchronization repository, if this has not been done during an earlier session at the same workstation (see above).
Start the synchronization with the server with
cvs update
. Update
individual files or directories as in
cvs update file1
directory1
. To see the difference between the current
files and the versions stored on the
server, use the command cvs diff
or cvs diff file1 directory1
. Use
cvs -nq update
to see which files
would be affected by an update.
Here are some of the status symbols displayed during an update:
The local version was updated. This affects all files that are provided by the server and missing on the local system.
The local version was modified. If there were changes on the server, it was possible to merge the differences in the local copy.
The local version was patched with the version on the server.
The local file conflicts with current version in the repository.
This file does not exist in CVS.
The status M
indicates a locally modified file. Either
commit the local copy to the server or remove the local file and run the
update again. In this case, the missing file is retrieved from the
server. If you commit a locally modified file and the file was
changed in the same line and
committed, you might get a conflict, indicated with
C
.
In this case, look at the conflict marks (»> and «<) in the
file and decide between the two versions. As this can be a rather
unpleasant job, you might decide to abandon your changes, delete the local
file, and enter cvs up
to retrieve
the current version from the server.