CVS FAQ

Getting Started

How do I get a project into my workspace from CVS?

1. Choose File > Import from the main menu
2. Select CVS > Projects from CVS and click Next
3. Click on Create a new repository location and click Next
4. Fill in the location information identifying your repository and click Next.
5. Click om the Use an existing module and select the project or projects you want to check out.
6. Click Finish

The project now exists in your workspace.

How do I put a project into CVS from my workspace?

1. Select the project in the Navigator or other view.
2. From the context menu choose Team->Share Project...
3. Fill in the location information identifying your repository and click Next.
4. Click Finish and the Sharing wizard closes and the Commit wizard opens.
5. Supply a release comment and click Finish to commit the project contents to the repository.

The project now exists in the repository.

I already have a project checked out from CVS with the command-line tool. How do I use it in Eclipse without having to check out the whole project again?

1. Create a project in the workspace.
2. File->Import, select File System, locate your files, click Finish.
3. Select the project in the Navigator or other view.
4. Context Menu->Team->Share Project...
5. The wizard should tell you that it found all the necessary information. Click Finish.

Eclipse has now shared the project with the CVS repository.

Browsing the Repository

Why don't my branches and versions show up when I am browsing?

When you are browsing in the CVS Repositories view, you may expect to see branch and version tags which you have previously created. In CVS, such tags are stored on individual files rather than on projects or folders. Rather than scan every file in the repository, Eclipse only scans one well-known file, .project, which should exist in every Eclipse project. It is possible that you have other interesting tags that do not appear on .project but which you would like to show up in the CVS Repositories view.

To make these tags appear, do the following:

1. Open the CVS Repositories view.
2. Expand HEAD and select the project for which you want to configure tags.
3. Context Menu->Configure Branches and Versions...
4. In the "Browse files for tags" table, select one or more files that contain tags you would like to see.
5. Click "Add Selected Tags".
6. Click "OK".

The CVS Repositories view will now display the chosen tags under the Branches and Versions categories. In addition, these tags will show up in other tag-related operations, such as "Replace With->Branch or Version...".

Why do some modules defined in CVSROOT/modules appear empty in the CVS Repositories view?

Some modules are not expandable because their definition is complex and difficult to parse on the client. These modules can still be checked out properly using the Check Out menu item from the module's context menu.

When I expand HEAD in the CVS Repositories View, it is always empty even though I know the repository has contents. Whats wrong?

If you also see messages from the server like "-f server: ...", this indicates that your CVS server has not been configured properly. Here is the line as it should appear in the "/etc/inetd.conf" file (example from AIX but the problem has also been seen on Solaris):

    cvspserver stream tcp nowait root /usr/bin/cvs cvs -f --allow-root=/usr/cvsroot pserver

The key is the 2nd copy of "cvs". The online cvs book at http://cvsbook.red-bean.com has it right (although I thought it was a typo so never tried it). Look for "The pserver access method is not working" section. Part of the reason I got this wrong is that the linux xinetd configuration does not duplicate the name of the program. At one point I just copied the fields from the linux config into the fields in the AIX inetd.conf file. Now that I know what to look for, the other entries in the inetd.conf file have the program name duplicated.

Server Issues

What server versions of CVS are supported by Eclipse?

In 3.0, Eclipse supports CVS version 1.11.1p1 or higher, running on a Linux or UNIX server and CVSNT 2.0.58d or later, when properly configured. Eclipse 2.1.2 and before does not work with CVS versions greater than 1.11.6. CVSNT versions prior to 2.0.58d are not supported but some versions have been reported to work with few problems. There are also cases where newer server versions are required for some functionality. For instance, incoming change sets in the synchronize view require CVS version 1.11.5 or beyond to work properly (see bug 81960)</p>

Why doesn't Eclipse 2.1.x work with CVS server versions 1.11.7 and beyond?

Most of the interesting Eclipse CVS functionality relies on the format of the messages and the change in format made in 1.11.7 breaks the parsing in Eclipse versions prior to 2.1.3. Most of the incompatibilities for 1.11.x were addressed in 2.1.3. See bugs 46655 and 49056 for patches and workarounds for previous versions of Eclipse or remaining incompatibilities. As for 1.12.x releases of CVS, Eclipse 2.1.x is not compatible with this server version. Eclipse 3.0 is compatible with 1.12.7 but future releases of CVS may cause similar breakages. In such cases, Team>Update and Team>Commit should still work but the more advanced work flows (e.g. synchronizing) may not be reliable.

Why aren't older (pre 2.0.58d) CVSNT versions supported?

The reason older CVSNT versions aren't supported is because traditionally its development effort had been smaller and has lagged behind that of CVS Linux, thus its quality tends to be of issue. That has changed as of version 2.0.58d which is now supported (when properly configured) on Eclipse 3.0 and beyond.

Where can I get CVS for UNIX or Windows?

CVS for UNIX can be downloaded by going to http://ximbiot.com/cvs/. CVSNT can be downloaded by going to http://www.cvsnt.org.</p>

Where can I find documentation on CVS?

The CVS manual can be found by going to http://ximbiot.com/cvs/.

When I perform a Replace With or Update operation, Eclipse tells me that option -C is not supported. What's wrong?

This error indicates that your server version is CVS 1.10 or before. The -C option was introduced in version 1.11.

I performed a Replace With or Override and Update and one of the files involved ended up with strange characters in it. Why?

This error indicates that your server version is CVS 1.11 which has a bug when replacing a locally dirty file. Go here to see the supported CVS versions.

I got a "received broken pipe signal" error. What does it mean?

Eclipse sometime performs multiple commands within a single connection to the server. This may cause problems with CVS server that are running server scripts in reponse to certain commands.

How do I use a local connection with Eclipse?

Eclipse does not support the use of the local connection method as this requires a CVS client that also includes the CVS server code in it. Command line cvs uses the same executable for the client and the server whereas Eclipse is a client only. Since the repository is on the same machine as the client, you should be able to use pserver.

With CVSNT, why do I get the error: "Error fetching file revisions"?

This problem has several causes. One is the use of a backslash (\) in the repository path instead of a slash (/). Another can be a mismatch in the case of the letters in the repository path. See bug 56635 for more details.

Why can't I get Eclipse to work with CVSNT and mapped network drives?

The problem is that CVSNT only supports using the local connection method with network drives and Eclipse does not support this connection method.

Using CVSNT, Why do I get the error "cvs [server aborted]: cannot find .: No such file or directory"?

I think the problem is that of user rights on the machine CVSNT is running on. You might try one or more of the following options:

• create a group having full access rights to the CVSNT repository directory structure plus the temp folder CVSNT is using. This is easiest if you specify a separate CVSNT temp directory such as "c:\cvstemp" using the Advanced tab in the
  CVSNT control panel. (The default temporary directories in "C:\WINNT\TEMP" and "C:\Documents and Settings" have access restrictions under Win2000 and WinXP).
• turn off impersonation in CVSNT
• add all CVS users to PowerUsers on the machine CVSNT is running on

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Why do I get the error "Resource <name> is not a child of folder <folder>"?

CVSNT has a separate option called Emulate "-n checkout" bug that must be enabled for Eclipse to work properly. This is because the "bug" in question is the behavior of a 1.11.x server which Eclipse requires.

Why can't I set the keyword substitution mode for CVSNT using Eclipse?

CVSNT has a non-standard way of dealing with keyword substitution so you will need to use a CVSNT specific client to modify the keyword substitution mode.