Table of Contents:

1. Introduction
2. Post install setup

Introduction
CVS is a free package. If set up right, CVS will allow you to manage change to any computer document or sets of documents. Setup correctly people will have an easy time. If not, it is possible to get extremely frustrated.

Frustrated people sometimes spends lots of money to get rid of frustration. In the case of controlling change, it depends on how deep your pockets are and how close is your IBM sales representative.

You can get CVS to work out of the box. If you spend a few minutes to change some configuration files, it will work very well. In this page I will show you how to make changes to CVS that will really help.

This will involve changing some of the files in CVSROOT. Since these files will be under CVS control as well. You can back out any changes you make.

You won't learn how to install or secure CVS. I take no liability for advice given in this article.

Post install setup
Several steps can make CVS really work much better.
Server Administration

• Checkout CVSROOT
• Use modules.
• Use config file tweaks.
• Create projects easily
• Use the right version of "cvs_acls"
• Set compression to 6

Checkout CVSROOT
Use modules.
Use config file tweaks.

The configuration file has one very important line. It is the LockDir= line. You will be better off having a folder that is outside the repository. So, if your repository is /usr/local/ntcvs then make a folder called /usr/local/ntcvslocks. Make sure the future lock folder "/usr/local/ntcvslocks" is set to chmod 777. Set the LockDir to /usr/local/ntcvslocks and then commit the file to cvs.