1This is cvs.info, produced by makeinfo version 4.0 from ./cvs.texinfo. 2 3START-INFO-DIR-ENTRY 4* CVS: (cvs). Concurrent Versions System 5END-INFO-DIR-ENTRY 6 7 Copyright (C) 1992, 1993 Signum Support AB Copyright (C) 1993, 1994 8Free Software Foundation, Inc. 9 10 Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this 11manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are 12preserved on all copies. 13 14 Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of 15this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided also 16that the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms 17of a permission notice identical to this one. 18 19 Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this 20manual into another language, under the above conditions for modified 21versions, except that this permission notice may be stated in a 22translation approved by the Free Software Foundation. 23 24 25File: cvs.info, Node: cvsignore, Next: checkoutlist, Prev: rcsinfo, Up: Administrative files 26 27Ignoring files via cvsignore 28============================ 29 30 There are certain file names that frequently occur inside your 31working copy, but that you don't want to put under CVS control. 32Examples are all the object files that you get while you compile your 33sources. Normally, when you run `cvs update', it prints a line for 34each file it encounters that it doesn't know about (*note update 35output::). 36 37 CVS has a list of files (or sh(1) file name patterns) that it should 38ignore while running `update', `import' and `release'. This list is 39constructed in the following way. 40 41 * The list is initialized to include certain file name patterns: 42 names associated with CVS administration, or with other common 43 source control systems; common names for patch files, object files, 44 archive files, and editor backup files; and other names that are 45 usually artifacts of assorted utilities. Currently, the default 46 list of ignored file name patterns is: 47 48 RCS SCCS CVS CVS.adm 49 RCSLOG cvslog.* 50 tags TAGS 51 .make.state .nse_depinfo 52 *~ #* .#* ,* _$* *$ 53 *.old *.bak *.BAK *.orig *.rej .del-* 54 *.a *.olb *.o *.obj *.so *.exe 55 *.Z *.elc *.ln 56 core 57 58 * The per-repository list in `$CVSROOT/CVSROOT/cvsignore' is 59 appended to the list, if that file exists. 60 61 * The per-user list in `.cvsignore' in your home directory is 62 appended to the list, if it exists. 63 64 * Any entries in the environment variable `$CVSIGNORE' is appended 65 to the list. 66 67 * Any `-I' options given to CVS is appended. 68 69 * As CVS traverses through your directories, the contents of any 70 `.cvsignore' will be appended to the list. The patterns found in 71 `.cvsignore' are only valid for the directory that contains them, 72 not for any sub-directories. 73 74 In any of the 5 places listed above, a single exclamation mark (`!') 75clears the ignore list. This can be used if you want to store any file 76which normally is ignored by CVS. 77 78 Specifying `-I !' to `cvs import' will import everything, which is 79generally what you want to do if you are importing files from a 80pristine distribution or any other source which is known to not contain 81any extraneous files. However, looking at the rules above you will see 82there is a fly in the ointment; if the distribution contains any 83`.cvsignore' files, then the patterns from those files will be 84processed even if `-I !' is specified. The only workaround is to 85remove the `.cvsignore' files in order to do the import. Because this 86is awkward, in the future `-I !' might be modified to override 87`.cvsignore' files in each directory. 88 89 Note that the syntax of the ignore files consists of a series of 90lines, each of which contains a space separated list of filenames. 91This offers no clean way to specify filenames which contain spaces, but 92you can use a workaround like `foo?bar' to match a file named `foo bar' 93(it also matches `fooxbar' and the like). Also note that there is 94currently no way to specify comments. 95 96 97File: cvs.info, Node: checkoutlist, Next: history file, Prev: cvsignore, Up: Administrative files 98 99The checkoutlist file 100===================== 101 102 It may be helpful to use CVS to maintain your own files in the 103`CVSROOT' directory. For example, suppose that you have a script 104`logcommit.pl' which you run by including the following line in the 105`commitinfo' administrative file: 106 107 ALL $CVSROOT/CVSROOT/logcommit.pl 108 109 To maintain `logcommit.pl' with CVS you would add the following line 110to the `checkoutlist' administrative file: 111 112 logcommit.pl 113 114 The format of `checkoutlist' is one line for each file that you want 115to maintain using CVS, giving the name of the file. 116 117 After setting up `checkoutlist' in this fashion, the files listed 118there will function just like CVS's built-in administrative files. For 119example, when checking in one of the files you should get a message 120such as: 121 122 cvs commit: Rebuilding administrative file database 123 124 and the checked out copy in the `CVSROOT' directory should be 125updated. 126 127 Note that listing `passwd' (*note Password authentication server::) 128in `checkoutlist' is not recommended for security reasons. 129 130 For information about keeping a checkout out copy in a more general 131context than the one provided by `checkoutlist', see *Note Keeping a 132checked out copy::. 133 134 135File: cvs.info, Node: history file, Next: Variables, Prev: checkoutlist, Up: Administrative files 136 137The history file 138================ 139 140 The file `$CVSROOT/CVSROOT/history' is used to log information for 141the `history' command (*note history::). This file must be created to 142turn on logging. This is done automatically if the `cvs init' command 143is used to set up the repository (*note Creating a repository::). 144 145 The file format of the `history' file is documented only in comments 146in the CVS source code, but generally programs should use the `cvs 147history' command to access it anyway, in case the format changes with 148future releases of CVS. 149 150 151File: cvs.info, Node: Variables, Next: config, Prev: history file, Up: Administrative files 152 153Expansions in administrative files 154================================== 155 156 Sometimes in writing an administrative file, you might want the file 157to be able to know various things based on environment CVS is running 158in. There are several mechanisms to do that. 159 160 To find the home directory of the user running CVS (from the `HOME' 161environment variable), use `~' followed by `/' or the end of the line. 162Likewise for the home directory of USER, use `~USER'. These variables 163are expanded on the server machine, and don't get any reasonable 164expansion if pserver (*note Password authenticated::) is in use; 165therefore user variables (see below) may be a better choice to 166customize behavior based on the user running CVS. 167 168 One may want to know about various pieces of information internal to 169CVS. A CVS internal variable has the syntax `${VARIABLE}', where 170VARIABLE starts with a letter and consists of alphanumeric characters 171and `_'. If the character following VARIABLE is a non-alphanumeric 172character other than `_', the `{' and `}' can be omitted. The CVS 173internal variables are: 174 175`CVSROOT' 176 This is the value of the CVS root in use. *Note Repository::, for 177 a description of the various ways to specify this. 178 179`RCSBIN' 180 In CVS 1.9.18 and older, this specified the directory where CVS 181 was looking for RCS programs. Because CVS no longer runs RCS 182 programs, specifying this internal variable is now an error. 183 184`CVSEDITOR' 185`VISUAL' 186`EDITOR' 187 These all expand to the same value, which is the editor that CVS 188 is using. *Note Global options::, for how to specify this. 189 190`USER' 191 Username of the user running CVS (on the CVS server machine). 192 When using pserver, this is the user specified in the repository 193 specification which need not be the same as the username the 194 server is running as (*note Password authentication server::). 195 196 If you want to pass a value to the administrative files which the 197user who is running CVS can specify, use a user variable. To expand a 198user variable, the administrative file contains `${=VARIABLE}'. To set 199a user variable, specify the global option `-s' to CVS, with argument 200`VARIABLE=VALUE'. It may be particularly useful to specify this option 201via `.cvsrc' (*note ~/.cvsrc::). 202 203 For example, if you want the administrative file to refer to a test 204directory you might create a user variable `TESTDIR'. Then if CVS is 205invoked as 206 207 cvs -s TESTDIR=/work/local/tests 208 209and the administrative file contains `sh ${=TESTDIR}/runtests', then 210that string is expanded to `sh /work/local/tests/runtests'. 211 212 All other strings containing `$' are reserved; there is no way to 213quote a `$' character so that `$' represents itself. 214 215 216File: cvs.info, Node: config, Prev: Variables, Up: Administrative files 217 218The CVSROOT/config configuration file 219===================================== 220 221 The administrative file `config' contains various miscellaneous 222settings which affect the behavior of CVS. The syntax is slightly 223different from the other administrative files. Variables are not 224expanded. Lines which start with `#' are considered comments. Other 225lines consist of a keyword, `=', and a value. Note that this syntax is 226very strict. Extraneous spaces or tabs are not permitted. 227 228 Currently defined keywords are: 229 230`RCSBIN=BINDIR' 231 For CVS 1.9.12 through 1.9.18, this setting told CVS to look for 232 RCS programs in the BINDIR directory. Current versions of CVS do 233 not run RCS programs; for compatibility this setting is accepted, 234 but it does nothing. 235 236`SystemAuth=VALUE' 237 If VALUE is `yes', then pserver should check for users in the 238 system's user database if not found in `CVSROOT/passwd'. If it is 239 `no', then all pserver users must exist in `CVSROOT/passwd'. The 240 default is `yes'. For more on pserver, see *Note Password 241 authenticated::. 242 243`TopLevelAdmin=VALUE' 244 Modify the `checkout' command to create a `CVS' directory at the 245 top level of the new working directory, in addition to `CVS' 246 directories created within checked-out directories. The default 247 value is `no'. 248 249 This option is useful if you find yourself performing many 250 commands at the top level of your working directory, rather than 251 in one of the checked out subdirectories. The `CVS' directory 252 created there will mean you don't have to specify `CVSROOT' for 253 each command. It also provides a place for the `CVS/Template' 254 file (*note Working directory storage::). 255 256`LockDir=DIRECTORY' 257 Put CVS lock files in DIRECTORY rather than directly in the 258 repository. This is useful if you want to let users read from the 259 repository while giving them write access only to DIRECTORY, not 260 to the repository. You need to create DIRECTORY, but CVS will 261 create subdirectories of DIRECTORY as it needs them. For 262 information on CVS locks, see *Note Concurrency::. 263 264 Before enabling the LockDir option, make sure that you have 265 tracked down and removed any copies of CVS 1.9 or older. Such 266 versions neither support LockDir, nor will give an error 267 indicating that they don't support it. The result, if this is 268 allowed to happen, is that some CVS users will put the locks one 269 place, and others will put them another place, and therefore the 270 repository could become corrupted. CVS 1.10 does not support 271 LockDir but it will print a warning if run on a repository with 272 LockDir enabled. 273 274`LogHistory=VALUE' 275 Control what is logged to the `CVSROOT/history' file. Default of 276 `TOFEWGCMAR' (or simply `all') will log all transactions. Any 277 subset of the default is legal. (For example, to only log 278 transactions that modify the `*,v' files, use `LogHistory=TMAR'.) 279 280 281File: cvs.info, Node: Environment variables, Next: Compatibility, Prev: Administrative files, Up: Top 282 283All environment variables which affect CVS 284****************************************** 285 286 This is a complete list of all environment variables that affect CVS. 287 288`$CVSIGNORE' 289 A whitespace-separated list of file name patterns that CVS should 290 ignore. *Note cvsignore::. 291 292`$CVSWRAPPERS' 293 A whitespace-separated list of file name patterns that CVS should 294 treat as wrappers. *Note Wrappers::. 295 296`$CVSREAD' 297 If this is set, `checkout' and `update' will try hard to make the 298 files in your working directory read-only. When this is not set, 299 the default behavior is to permit modification of your working 300 files. 301 302`$CVSUMASK' 303 Controls permissions of files in the repository. See *Note File 304 permissions::. 305 306`$CVSROOT' 307 Should contain the full pathname to the root of the CVS source 308 repository (where the RCS files are kept). This information must 309 be available to CVS for most commands to execute; if `$CVSROOT' is 310 not set, or if you wish to override it for one invocation, you can 311 supply it on the command line: `cvs -d cvsroot cvs_command...' 312 Once you have checked out a working directory, CVS stores the 313 appropriate root (in the file `CVS/Root'), so normally you only 314 need to worry about this when initially checking out a working 315 directory. 316 317`$EDITOR' 318`$CVSEDITOR' 319`$VISUAL' 320 Specifies the program to use for recording log messages during 321 commit. `$CVSEDITOR' overrides `$EDITOR'. See *Note Committing 322 your changes::. 323 324`$PATH' 325 If `$RCSBIN' is not set, and no path is compiled into CVS, it will 326 use `$PATH' to try to find all programs it uses. 327 328`$HOME' 329 330`$HOMEPATH' 331 332`$HOMEDRIVE' 333 Used to locate the directory where the `.cvsrc' file, and other 334 such files, are searched. On Unix, CVS just checks for `HOME'. 335 On Windows NT, the system will set `HOMEDRIVE', for example to 336 `d:' and `HOMEPATH', for example to `\joe'. On Windows 95, you'll 337 probably need to set `HOMEDRIVE' and `HOMEPATH' yourself. 338 339`$CVS_RSH' 340 Specifies the external program which CVS connects with, when 341 `:ext:' access method is specified. *note Connecting via rsh::. 342 343`$CVS_SERVER' 344 Used in client-server mode when accessing a remote repository 345 using RSH. It specifies the name of the program to start on the 346 server side when accessing a remote repository using RSH. The 347 default value is `cvs'. *note Connecting via rsh:: 348 349`$CVS_PASSFILE' 350 Used in client-server mode when accessing the `cvs login server'. 351 Default value is `$HOME/.cvspass'. *note Password authentication 352 client:: 353 354`$CVS_CLIENT_PORT' 355 Used in client-server mode when accessing the server via Kerberos. 356 *note Kerberos authenticated:: 357 358`$CVS_RCMD_PORT' 359 Used in client-server mode. If set, specifies the port number to 360 be used when accessing the RCMD demon on the server side. 361 (Currently not used for Unix clients). 362 363`$CVS_CLIENT_LOG' 364 Used for debugging only in client-server mode. If set, everything 365 sent to the server is logged into ``$CVS_CLIENT_LOG'.in' and 366 everything sent from the server is logged into 367 ``$CVS_CLIENT_LOG'.out'. 368 369`$CVS_SERVER_SLEEP' 370 Used only for debugging the server side in client-server mode. If 371 set, delays the start of the server child process the specified 372 amount of seconds so that you can attach to it with a debugger. 373 374`$CVS_IGNORE_REMOTE_ROOT' 375 For CVS 1.10 and older, setting this variable prevents CVS from 376 overwriting the `CVS/Root' file when the `-d' global option is 377 specified. Later versions of CVS do not rewrite `CVS/Root', so 378 `CVS_IGNORE_REMOTE_ROOT' has no effect. 379 380`$COMSPEC' 381 Used under OS/2 only. It specifies the name of the command 382 interpreter and defaults to CMD.EXE. 383 384`$TMPDIR' 385`$TMP' 386`$TEMP' 387 Directory in which temporary files are located. The CVS server 388 uses `TMPDIR'. *Note Global options::, for a description of how 389 to specify this. Some parts of CVS will always use `/tmp' (via 390 the `tmpnam' function provided by the system). 391 392 On Windows NT, `TMP' is used (via the `_tempnam' function provided 393 by the system). 394 395 The `patch' program which is used by the CVS client uses `TMPDIR', 396 and if it is not set, uses `/tmp' (at least with GNU patch 2.1). 397 Note that if your server and client are both running CVS 1.9.10 or 398 later, CVS will not invoke an external `patch' program. 399 400 401File: cvs.info, Node: Compatibility, Next: Troubleshooting, Prev: Environment variables, Up: Top 402 403Compatibility between CVS Versions 404********************************** 405 406 The repository format is compatible going back to CVS 1.3. But see 407*Note Watches Compatibility::, if you have copies of CVS 1.6 or older 408and you want to use the optional developer communication features. 409 410 The working directory format is compatible going back to CVS 1.5. 411It did change between CVS 1.3 and CVS 1.5. If you run CVS 1.5 or newer 412on a working directory checked out with CVS 1.3, CVS will convert it, 413but to go back to CVS 1.3 you need to check out a new working directory 414with CVS 1.3. 415 416 The remote protocol is interoperable going back to CVS 1.5, but no 417further (1.5 was the first official release with the remote protocol, 418but some older versions might still be floating around). In many cases 419you need to upgrade both the client and the server to take advantage of 420new features and bugfixes, however. 421 422 423File: cvs.info, Node: Troubleshooting, Next: Credits, Prev: Compatibility, Up: Top 424 425Troubleshooting 426*************** 427 428 If you are having trouble with CVS, this appendix may help. If 429there is a particular error message which you are seeing, then you can 430look up the message alphabetically. If not, you can look through the 431section on other problems to see if your problem is mentioned there. 432 433* Menu: 434 435* Error messages:: Partial list of CVS errors 436* Connection:: Trouble making a connection to a CVS server 437* Other problems:: Problems not readily listed by error message 438 439 440File: cvs.info, Node: Error messages, Next: Connection, Up: Troubleshooting 441 442Partial list of error messages 443============================== 444 445 Here is a partial list of error messages that you may see from CVS. 446It is not a complete list--CVS is capable of printing many, many error 447messages, often with parts of them supplied by the operating system, 448but the intention is to list the common and/or potentially confusing 449error messages. 450 451 The messages are alphabetical, but introductory text such as `cvs 452update: ' is not considered in ordering them. 453 454 In some cases the list includes messages printed by old versions of 455CVS (partly because users may not be sure which version of CVS they are 456using at any particular moment). 457 458`cvs COMMAND: authorization failed: server HOST rejected access' 459 This is a generic response when trying to connect to a pserver 460 server which chooses not to provide a specific reason for denying 461 authorization. Check that the username and password specified are 462 correct and that the `CVSROOT' specified is allowed by 463 `--allow-root' in `inetd.conf'. See *Note Password 464 authenticated::. 465 466`FILE:LINE: Assertion 'TEXT' failed' 467 The exact format of this message may vary depending on your 468 system. It indicates a bug in CVS, which can be handled as 469 described in *Note BUGS::. 470 471`cvs COMMAND: conflict: removed FILE was modified by second party' 472 This message indicates that you removed a file, and someone else 473 modified it. To resolve the conflict, first run `cvs add FILE'. 474 If desired, look at the other party's modification to decide 475 whether you still want to remove it. If you don't want to remove 476 it, stop here. If you do want to remove it, proceed with `cvs 477 remove FILE' and commit your removal. 478 479`cannot change permissions on temporary directory' 480 Operation not permitted 481 This message has been happening in a non-reproducible, occasional 482 way when we run the client/server testsuite, both on Red Hat Linux 483 3.0.3 and 4.1. We haven't been able to figure out what causes it, 484 nor is it known whether it is specific to linux (or even to this 485 particular machine!). If the problem does occur on other unices, 486 `Operation not permitted' would be likely to read `Not owner' or 487 whatever the system in question uses for the unix `EPERM' error. 488 If you have any information to add, please let us know as 489 described in *Note BUGS::. If you experience this error while 490 using CVS, retrying the operation which produced it should work 491 fine. 492 493`cvs [server aborted]: Cannot check out files into the repository itself' 494 The obvious cause for this message (especially for 495 non-client/server CVS) is that the CVS root is, for example, 496 `/usr/local/cvsroot' and you try to check out files when you are 497 in a subdirectory, such as `/usr/local/cvsroot/test'. However, 498 there is a more subtle cause, which is that the temporary 499 directory on the server is set to a subdirectory of the root 500 (which is also not allowed). If this is the problem, set the 501 temporary directory to somewhere else, for example `/var/tmp'; see 502 `TMPDIR' in *Note Environment variables::, for how to set the 503 temporary directory. 504 505`cannot open CVS/Entries for reading: No such file or directory' 506 This generally indicates a CVS internal error, and can be handled 507 as with other CVS bugs (*note BUGS::). Usually there is a 508 workaround--the exact nature of which would depend on the 509 situation but which hopefully could be figured out. 510 511`cvs [init aborted]: cannot open CVS/Root: No such file or directory' 512 This message is harmless. Provided it is not accompanied by other 513 errors, the operation has completed successfully. This message 514 should not occur with current versions of CVS, but it is documented 515 here for the benefit of CVS 1.9 and older. 516 517`cvs [checkout aborted]: cannot rename file FILE to CVS/,,FILE: Invalid argument' 518 This message has been reported as intermittently happening with 519 CVS 1.9 on Solaris 2.5. The cause is unknown; if you know more 520 about what causes it, let us know as described in *Note BUGS::. 521 522`cvs [COMMAND aborted]: cannot start server via rcmd' 523 This, unfortunately, is a rather nonspecific error message which 524 CVS 1.9 will print if you are running the CVS client and it is 525 having trouble connecting to the server. Current versions of CVS 526 should print a much more specific error message. If you get this 527 message when you didn't mean to run the client at all, you 528 probably forgot to specify `:local:', as described in *Note 529 Repository::. 530 531`ci: FILE,v: bad diff output line: Binary files - and /tmp/T2a22651 differ' 532 CVS 1.9 and older will print this message when trying to check in 533 a binary file if RCS is not correctly installed. Re-read the 534 instructions that came with your RCS distribution and the INSTALL 535 file in the CVS distribution. Alternately, upgrade to a current 536 version of CVS, which checks in files itself rather than via RCS. 537 538`cvs checkout: could not check out FILE' 539 With CVS 1.9, this can mean that the `co' program (part of RCS) 540 returned a failure. It should be preceded by another error 541 message, however it has been observed without another error 542 message and the cause is not well-understood. With the current 543 version of CVS, which does not run `co', if this message occurs 544 without another error message, it is definitely a CVS bug (*note 545 BUGS::). 546 547`cvs [login aborted]: could not find out home directory' 548 This means that you need to set the environment variables that CVS 549 uses to locate your home directory. See the discussion of `HOME', 550 `HOMEDRIVE', and `HOMEPATH' in *Note Environment variables::. 551 552`cvs update: could not merge revision REV of FILE: No such file or directory' 553 CVS 1.9 and older will print this message if there was a problem 554 finding the `rcsmerge' program. Make sure that it is in your 555 `PATH', or upgrade to a current version of CVS, which does not 556 require an external `rcsmerge' program. 557 558`cvs [update aborted]: could not patch FILE: No such file or directory' 559 This means that there was a problem finding the `patch' program. 560 Make sure that it is in your `PATH'. Note that despite 561 appearances the message is _not_ referring to whether it can find 562 FILE. If both the client and the server are running a current 563 version of CVS, then there is no need for an external patch 564 program and you should not see this message. But if either client 565 or server is running CVS 1.9, then you need `patch'. 566 567`cvs update: could not patch FILE; will refetch' 568 This means that for whatever reason the client was unable to apply 569 a patch that the server sent. The message is nothing to be 570 concerned about, because inability to apply the patch only slows 571 things down and has no effect on what CVS does. 572 573`dying gasps from SERVER unexpected' 574 There is a known bug in the server for CVS 1.9.18 and older which 575 can cause this. For me, this was reproducible if I used the `-t' 576 global option. It was fixed by Andy Piper's 14 Nov 1997 change to 577 src/filesubr.c, if anyone is curious. If you see the message, you 578 probably can just retry the operation which failed, or if you have 579 discovered information concerning its cause, please let us know as 580 described in *Note BUGS::. 581 582`end of file from server (consult above messages if any)' 583 The most common cause for this message is if you are using an 584 external `rsh' program and it exited with an error. In this case 585 the `rsh' program should have printed a message, which will appear 586 before the above message. For more information on setting up a 587 CVS client and server, see *Note Remote repositories::. 588 589`cvs [update aborted]: EOF in key in RCS file FILE,v' 590`cvs [checkout aborted]: EOF while looking for end of string in RCS file FILE,v' 591 This means that there is a syntax error in the given RCS file. 592 Note that this might be true even if RCS can read the file OK; CVS 593 does more error checking of errors in the RCS file. That is why 594 you may see this message when upgrading from CVS 1.9 to CVS 1.10. 595 The likely cause for the original corruption is hardware, the 596 operating system, or the like. Of course, if you find a case in 597 which CVS seems to corrupting the file, by all means report it, 598 (*note BUGS::). There are quite a few variations of this error 599 message, depending on exactly where in the RCS file CVS finds the 600 syntax error. 601 602`cvs commit: Executing 'mkmodules'' 603 This means that your repository is set up for a version of CVS 604 prior to CVS 1.8. When using CVS 1.8 or later, the above message 605 will be preceded by 606 607 cvs commit: Rebuilding administrative file database 608 609 If you see both messages, the database is being rebuilt twice, 610 which is unnecessary but harmless. If you wish to avoid the 611 duplication, and you have no versions of CVS 1.7 or earlier in 612 use, remove `-i mkmodules' every place it appears in your `modules' 613 file. For more information on the `modules' file, see *Note 614 modules::. 615 616`missing author' 617 Typically this can happen if you created an RCS file with your 618 username set to empty. CVS will, bogusly, create an illegal RCS 619 file with no value for the author field. The solution is to make 620 sure your username is set to a non-empty value and re-create the 621 RCS file. 622 623`cvs [checkout aborted]: no such tag TAG' 624 This message means that CVS isn't familiar with the tag TAG. 625 Usually this means that you have mistyped a tag name; however 626 there are (relatively obscure) cases in which CVS will require you 627 to try a few other CVS commands involving that tag, before you 628 find one which will cause CVS to update the `val-tags' file; see 629 discussion of val-tags in *Note File permissions::. You only need 630 to worry about this once for a given tag; when a tag is listed in 631 `val-tags', it stays there. Note that using `-f' to not require 632 tag matches does not override this check; see *Note Common 633 options::. 634 635`*PANIC* administration files missing' 636 This typically means that there is a directory named CVS but it 637 does not contain the administrative files which CVS puts in a CVS 638 directory. If the problem is that you created a CVS directory via 639 some mechanism other than CVS, then the answer is simple, use a 640 name other than CVS. If not, it indicates a CVS bug (*note 641 BUGS::). 642 643`rcs error: Unknown option: -x,v/' 644 This message will be followed by a usage message for RCS. It 645 means that you have an old version of RCS (probably supplied with 646 your operating system), as well as an old version of CVS. CVS 647 1.9.18 and earlier only work with RCS version 5 and later; current 648 versions of CVS do not run RCS programs. 649 650`cvs [server aborted]: received broken pipe signal' 651 This message seems to be caused by a hard-to-track-down bug in CVS 652 or the systems it runs on (we don't know--we haven't tracked it 653 down yet!). It seems to happen only after a CVS command has 654 completed, and you should be able to just ignore the message. 655 However, if you have discovered information concerning its cause, 656 please let us know as described in *Note BUGS::. 657 658`Too many arguments!' 659 This message is typically printed by the `log.pl' script which is 660 in the `contrib' directory in the CVS source distribution. In 661 some versions of CVS, `log.pl' has been part of the default CVS 662 installation. The `log.pl' script gets called from the `loginfo' 663 administrative file. Check that the arguments passed in `loginfo' 664 match what your version of `log.pl' expects. In particular, the 665 `log.pl' from CVS 1.3 and older expects the logfile as an argument 666 whereas the `log.pl' from CVS 1.5 and newer expects the logfile to 667 be specified with a `-f' option. Of course, if you don't need 668 `log.pl' you can just comment it out of `loginfo'. 669 670`cvs [update aborted]: unexpected EOF reading FILE,v' 671 See `EOF in key in RCS file'. 672 673`cvs [login aborted]: unrecognized auth response from SERVER' 674 This message typically means that the server is not set up 675 properly. For example, if `inetd.conf' points to a nonexistent 676 cvs executable. To debug it further, find the log file which 677 inetd writes (`/var/log/messages' or whatever inetd uses on your 678 system). For details, see *Note Connection::, and *Note Password 679 authentication server::. 680 681`cvs server: cannot open /root/.cvsignore: Permission denied' 682`cvs [server aborted]: can't chdir(/root): Permission denied' 683 See *Note Connection::. 684 685`cvs commit: Up-to-date check failed for `FILE'' 686 This means that someone else has committed a change to that file 687 since the last time that you did a `cvs update'. So before 688 proceeding with your `cvs commit' you need to `cvs update'. CVS 689 will merge the changes that you made and the changes that the 690 other person made. If it does not detect any conflicts it will 691 report `M FILE' and you are ready to `cvs commit'. If it detects 692 conflicts it will print a message saying so, will report `C FILE', 693 and you need to manually resolve the conflict. For more details 694 on this process see *Note Conflicts example::. 695 696`Usage: diff3 [-exEX3 [-i | -m] [-L label1 -L label3]] file1 file2 file3' 697 Only one of [exEX3] allowed 698 This indicates a problem with the installation of `diff3' and 699 `rcsmerge'. Specifically `rcsmerge' was compiled to look for GNU 700 diff3, but it is finding unix diff3 instead. The exact text of 701 the message will vary depending on the system. The simplest 702 solution is to upgrade to a current version of CVS, which does not 703 rely on external `rcsmerge' or `diff3' programs. 704 705`warning: unrecognized response `TEXT' from cvs server' 706 If TEXT contains a valid response (such as `ok') followed by an 707 extra carriage return character (on many systems this will cause 708 the second part of the message to overwrite the first part), then 709 it probably means that you are using the `:ext:' access method 710 with a version of rsh, such as most non-unix rsh versions, which 711 does not by default provide a transparent data stream. In such 712 cases you probably want to try `:server:' instead of `:ext:'. If 713 TEXT is something else, this may signify a problem with your CVS 714 server. Double-check your installation against the instructions 715 for setting up the CVS server. 716 717`cvs commit: [TIME] waiting for USER's lock in DIRECTORY' 718 This is a normal message, not an error. See *Note Concurrency::, 719 for more details. 720 721`cvs commit: warning: editor session failed' 722 This means that the editor which CVS is using exits with a nonzero 723 exit status. Some versions of vi will do this even when there was 724 not a problem editing the file. If so, point the `CVSEDITOR' 725 environment variable to a small script such as: 726 727 #!/bin/sh 728 vi $* 729 exit 0 730 731 732File: cvs.info, Node: Connection, Next: Other problems, Prev: Error messages, Up: Troubleshooting 733 734Trouble making a connection to a CVS server 735=========================================== 736 737 This section concerns what to do if you are having trouble making a 738connection to a CVS server. If you are running the CVS command line 739client running on Windows, first upgrade the client to CVS 1.9.12 or 740later. The error reporting in earlier versions provided much less 741information about what the problem was. If the client is non-Windows, 742CVS 1.9 should be fine. 743 744 If the error messages are not sufficient to track down the problem, 745the next steps depend largely on which access method you are using. 746 747`:ext:' 748 Try running the rsh program from the command line. For example: 749 "rsh servername cvs -v" should print CVS version information. If 750 this doesn't work, you need to fix it before you can worry about 751 CVS problems. 752 753`:server:' 754 You don't need a command line rsh program to use this access 755 method, but if you have an rsh program around, it may be useful as 756 a debugging tool. Follow the directions given for :ext:. 757 758`:pserver:' 759 One good debugging tool is to "telnet servername 2401". After 760 connecting, send any text (for example "foo" followed by return). 761 If CVS is working correctly, it will respond with 762 763 cvs [pserver aborted]: bad auth protocol start: foo 764 765 If this fails to work, then make sure inetd is working right. 766 Change the invocation in `inetd.conf' to run the echo program 767 instead of cvs. For example: 768 769 2401 stream tcp nowait root /bin/echo echo hello 770 771 After making that change and instructing inetd to re-read its 772 configuration file, "telnet servername 2401" should show you the 773 text hello and then the server should close the connection. If 774 this doesn't work, you need to fix it before you can worry about 775 CVS problems. 776 777 On AIX systems, the system will often have its own program trying 778 to use port 2401. This is AIX's problem in the sense that port 779 2401 is registered for use with CVS. I hear that there is an AIX 780 patch available to address this problem. 781 782 Another good debugging tool is the `-d' (debugging) option to 783 inetd. Consult your system documentation for more information. 784 785 If you seem to be connecting but get errors like: 786 787 cvs server: cannot open /root/.cvsignore: Permission denied 788 cvs [server aborted]: can't chdir(/root): Permission denied 789 790 then either you haven't specified `-f' in `inetd.conf' or your 791 system is setting the `HOME' environment variable for programs 792 being run by inetd. In the latter case, you can either have inetd 793 run a shell script that unsets `HOME' and then runs CVS, or you 794 can use `env' to run CVS with a pristine environment. 795 796 If you can connect successfully for a while but then can't, you've 797 probably hit inetd's rate limit. (If inetd receives too many 798 requests for the same service in a short period of time, it 799 assumes that something is wrong and temporarily disables the 800 service.) Check your inetd documentation to find out how to 801 adjust the rate limit (some versions of inetd have a single rate 802 limit, others allow you to set the limit for each service 803 separately.) 804 805 806File: cvs.info, Node: Other problems, Prev: Connection, Up: Troubleshooting 807 808Other common problems 809===================== 810 811 Here is a list of problems which do not fit into the above 812categories. They are in no particular order. 813 814 * On Windows, if there is a 30 second or so delay when you run a CVS 815 command, it may mean that you have your home directory set to 816 `C:/', for example (see `HOMEDRIVE' and `HOMEPATH' in *Note 817 Environment variables::). CVS expects the home directory to not 818 end in a slash, for example `C:' or `C:\cvs'. 819 820 * If you are running CVS 1.9.18 or older, and `cvs update' finds a 821 conflict and tries to merge, as described in *Note Conflicts 822 example::, but doesn't tell you there were conflicts, then you may 823 have an old version of RCS. The easiest solution probably is to 824 upgrade to a current version of CVS, which does not rely on 825 external RCS programs. 826 827 828File: cvs.info, Node: Credits, Next: BUGS, Prev: Troubleshooting, Up: Top 829 830Credits 831******* 832 833 Roland Pesch, then of Cygnus Support <roland@wrs.com> wrote the 834manual pages which were distributed with CVS 1.3. Much of their text 835was copied into this manual. He also read an early draft of this 836manual and contributed many ideas and corrections. 837 838 The mailing-list `info-cvs' is sometimes informative. I have 839included information from postings made by the following persons: David 840G. Grubbs <dgg@think.com>. 841 842 Some text has been extracted from the man pages for RCS. 843 844 The CVS FAQ by David G. Grubbs has provided useful material. The 845FAQ is no longer maintained, however, and this manual is about the 846closest thing there is to a successor (with respect to documenting how 847to use CVS, at least). 848 849 In addition, the following persons have helped by telling me about 850mistakes I've made: 851 852 Roxanne Brunskill <rbrunski@datap.ca>, 853 Kathy Dyer <dyer@phoenix.ocf.llnl.gov>, 854 Karl Pingle <pingle@acuson.com>, 855 Thomas A Peterson <tap@src.honeywell.com>, 856 Inge Wallin <ingwa@signum.se>, 857 Dirk Koschuetzki <koschuet@fmi.uni-passau.de> 858 and Michael Brown <brown@wi.extrel.com>. 859 860 The list of contributors here is not comprehensive; for a more 861complete list of who has contributed to this manual see the file 862`doc/ChangeLog' in the CVS source distribution. 863 864 865File: cvs.info, Node: BUGS, Next: Index, Prev: Credits, Up: Top 866 867Dealing with bugs in CVS or this manual 868*************************************** 869 870 Neither CVS nor this manual is perfect, and they probably never will 871be. If you are having trouble using CVS, or think you have found a 872bug, there are a number of things you can do about it. Note that if 873the manual is unclear, that can be considered a bug in the manual, so 874these problems are often worth doing something about as well as 875problems with CVS itself. 876 877 * If you want someone to help you and fix bugs that you report, 878 there are companies which will do that for a fee. Two such 879 companies are: 880 881 Signum Support AB 882 Box 2044 883 S-580 02 Linkoping 884 Sweden 885 Email: info@signum.se 886 Phone: +46 (0)13 - 21 46 00 887 Fax: +46 (0)13 - 21 47 00 888 http://www.signum.se/ 889 890 * If you got CVS through a distributor, such as an operating system 891 vendor or a vendor of freeware CD-ROMs, you may wish to see 892 whether the distributor provides support. Often, they will provide 893 no support or minimal support, but this may vary from distributor 894 to distributor. 895 896 * If you have the skills and time to do so, you may wish to fix the 897 bug yourself. If you wish to submit your fix for inclusion in 898 future releases of CVS, see the file HACKING in the CVS source 899 distribution. It contains much more information on the process of 900 submitting fixes. 901 902 * There may be resources on the net which can help. Two good places 903 to start are: 904 905 http://www.cvshome.org 906 http://www.loria.fr/~molli/cvs-index.html 907 908 If you are so inspired, increasing the information available on 909 the net is likely to be appreciated. For example, before the 910 standard CVS distribution worked on Windows 95, there was a web 911 page with some explanation and patches for running CVS on Windows 912 95, and various people helped out by mentioning this page on 913 mailing lists or newsgroups when the subject came up. 914 915 * It is also possible to report bugs to `bug-cvs'. Note that 916 someone may or may not want to do anything with your bug 917 report--if you need a solution consider one of the options 918 mentioned above. People probably do want to hear about bugs which 919 are particularly severe in consequences and/or easy to fix, 920 however. You can also increase your odds by being as clear as 921 possible about the exact nature of the bug and any other relevant 922 information. The way to report bugs is to send email to 923 `bug-cvs@gnu.org'. Note that submissions to `bug-cvs' may be 924 distributed under the terms of the GNU Public License, so if you 925 don't like this, don't submit them. There is usually no 926 justification for sending mail directly to one of the CVS 927 maintainers rather than to `bug-cvs'; those maintainers who want 928 to hear about such bug reports read `bug-cvs'. Also note that 929 sending a bug report to other mailing lists or newsgroups is _not_ 930 a substitute for sending it to `bug-cvs'. It is fine to discuss 931 CVS bugs on whatever forum you prefer, but there are not 932 necessarily any maintainers reading bug reports sent anywhere 933 except `bug-cvs'. 934 935 People often ask if there is a list of known bugs or whether a 936particular bug is a known one. The file BUGS in the CVS source 937distribution is one list of known bugs, but it doesn't necessarily try 938to be comprehensive. Perhaps there will never be a comprehensive, 939detailed list of known bugs. 940 941