Essential CVS

CVSROOT Files

The CVSROOT directory contains administrative files that contain information about the projects stored in CVS. The CVSROOT directory can be checked out to a sandbox, edited, and committed in the same way as any other directories or files managed by CVS.

As part of the process of committing an administrative file, CVS exports a clear-text copy into the CVSROOT directory. The CVSROOT directory contains both RCS-format repository copies of administrative files and clear-text copies of the latest revision of the files. The RCS-format files are named filename,v. While CVS is creating the clear-text copies, it prints the message cvs commit: Rebuilding admnistrative file database.

Some of the files in CVSROOT allow you to run user-created scripts during the execution of CVS commands. Therefore, it’s important to restrict the people authorized to commit or edit files in the CVSROOT directory.

It’s good practice to have a specific username to own the CVSROOT directory and the repository root directory, and to be the initial owner of the CVSROOT files. This restricts the amount of damage that can be done to these files by a malicious or careless user, unless they happen to have root permissions.

Create a group to have the group ownership of the CVSROOT directory and files, and include only trusted people in that group. If this group should be permitted to create new projects, and consists of all the people who can, it can also own the repository root directory. The CVSROOT directory ...