From: Colin Ladyka on
We are attempting to install and configure CVS so it can be used by the Wolfram Workbench CVS client.

We have multiple Windows XP computers all accessing a single shared drive. We have installed CVS on the shared drive. We can run the server in "local access method" from a command line in a DOS window on all systems. We have successfully created & deleted repositories on the share.

Workbench only appears to provide access to CVS via client/server access methods (pserver, ext, extssh, or pserverssh2). The local access method appears to be missing.

Is it possible to access the CVS server in local access method from the Workbench client?

How is this done?

Is this a bad idea?

If local access method is not possible/desirable, which access method is preferred?

Windows XP does not provide an rsh or ssh service. Are there recommended free ones out there?

Is there documentation on how to configure a CVS server on Windows XP for Wolfram Workbench?

The CVS manual (Version Management with CVS for CVS 1.11.23, Per Cederqvist et al) provides documentation for setting up the server for password authentication, but it all appears to apply to UNIX type operating systems (ex. modifying /etc/inetd.conf,...).

From: Adam Berry on
On 12/10/09 3:58 AM, Colin Ladyka wrote:
> We are attempting to install and configure CVS so it can be used by the Wolfram Workbench CVS client.
>
> We have multiple Windows XP computers all accessing a single shared drive. We have installed CVS on the shared drive. We can run the server in "local access method" from a command line in a DOS window on all systems. We have successfully created& deleted repositories on the share.
>
> Workbench only appears to provide access to CVS via client/server access methods (pserver, ext, extssh, or pserverssh2). The local access method appears to be missing.
>
> Is it possible to access the CVS server in local access method from the Workbench client?
>
> How is this done?
>
> Is this a bad idea?
>
> If local access method is not possible/desirable, which access method is preferred?
>
> Windows XP does not provide an rsh or ssh service. Are there recommended free ones out there?
>
> Is there documentation on how to configure a CVS server on Windows XP for Wolfram Workbench?
>
> The CVS manual (Version Management with CVS for CVS 1.11.23, Per Cederqvist et al) provides documentation for setting up the server for password authentication, but it all appears to apply to UNIX type operating systems (ex. modifying /etc/inetd.conf,...).
>
>
>
Hello,

As you have noted the only, the CVS support in Wolfram Workbench (built
on Eclipse, which is where this feature is inherited from) is only a
client in the client/server model. Local access to the repository does
not fit into this method of connecting to a CVS repository.

In a multi-machine, multi-user scenario you really will be better off
setting up a cvs server, but as you have noted cvs itself is really for
linux/unix environments. One approach would be to setup a linux box
(could be a virtual machine) to put the cvs server on. Alternatively
there is cvsnt, which is a dropin for cvs, where you can serve the
repository from windows using a method that the workbench can connect to.

For downloads; http://www.evscm.org/modules/Downloads/
Installation Guide; http://web.telia.com/~u86216177/InstallCVSNT25.html
Eclipse cvs faq, which mentions some cvsnt specific things;
http://wiki.eclipse.org/CVS_FAQ

But it does look like there may be some issues with cvsnt and the
workbench/eclipse cvs client, but I also see that cvsnt has professional
support available, but the eclipse cvs faq does outline tests you can
execute to see if your setup is compatible.

Finally, it is possible to use the command line (or some other client
that does support local directory access) with your code that you
develop in the workbench, although you do use having all the
functionality integrated. See
http://help.eclipse.org/galileo/index.jsp?topic=/org.eclipse.platform.doc.user/tasks/task-team-cmdlineclient.htm
for a discussion of what this means.

I am not recommending any particular approach/product to you, I just
wanted to give you some information to help you move forward.

Adam Berry
Wolfram Workbench Development Team
Wolfram Research, Inc



From: Albert Retey on
Hi,

> We are attempting to install and configure CVS so it can be used by
> the Wolfram Workbench CVS client.
>
> We have multiple Windows XP computers all accessing a single shared
> drive. We have installed CVS on the shared drive. We can run the
> server in "local access method" from a command line in a DOS window
> on all systems. We have successfully created & deleted repositories
> on the share.

hm, I don't know CVS good enough to be sure, but I doubt that this is
save, I would really make sure that the local access method of CVS will
work with such a setup, I know it is discouraged to use such a setup
with NFS on *nix, but found hints that it is used like this on Windows...

> Workbench only appears to provide access to CVS via client/server
> access methods (pserver, ext, extssh, or pserverssh2). The local
> access method appears to be missing.

> Is it possible to access the CVS server in local access method from
> the Workbench client?

I don't know.

> How is this done?
>
> Is this a bad idea?

probably yes...

> If local access method is not possible/desirable, which access method
> is preferred?

If you are providing service for a team, I would have some suggestions:

1) If you need CVS, run it in server mode on a server, this is fairly
well documented for *nix, if you need the server to run windows there is
a package available here: <http://www.cvsnt.org> . As you have seen, CVS
is quite focused on *nix, so you might find it difficult to find
information on installing, configuring and running a CVS server on
Windows...

2) Consider Subversion as an alternative, I think it handles directories
and binary files somewhat better than CVS, and there is also a windows
server version, which might or might not be easier to install.

3) if you are free to choose the type of version control, look at
alternatives, especially distributed version control systems. One that I
have run on windows with minimal installation effort is mercurial. With
a distributed version control system, you don't need to run a server and
using a shared network drive for a central repository would work well
(at least for mercurial).

Considering the use with Wolfram Workbench, you should appreciate that
it it is just an eclipse with some plugins from WRI. So you can use any
eclipse plugin that is out there, and there are plugins for most version
control systems out there: for subversion there are two, for mercurial
there seem also to be two...

hth,

albert