CVS Concept

The basic concepts of CVS are the topic for this category.

• Explain the purpose of head, branch and tags (labels).
• You should be aware of the fact that CVS does not support traditional re-factoring such as renaming a file and the consequences of this.
• Know that CVS is a source control system, which is a tool for developers, a kind of safety net.
• Describe the client/server nature of CVS and that CVS is not using locks.
• The fact CVS holds a list of users which may have different authorizations on different projects.
• Explain the following concepts:
  • Repository
  • Revisions
  • Working copy
  • Tags
  • Conflicts
• Distinguish between the following actions:
  • Update
  • Checkout
  • Commit
  • Merge
  • Export

The basic CVS commands and its more common options. The basic idea for this category can be found here.

This category requires the ability to use CVS routinely. That is:

• performing checkout of projects
• committing and updating
• looking for differences between the local copy and the remote version of a file
• exporting files
• creating local repositories for short term use and understanding their limitations
• logging in to pserver repositories
• logging in to ssh repositories

• Explain how keyword expansion works and define the output of the following keywords:
  • Author
  • Date
  • Id
  • Log
  • Name
  • Revision
  • Header
• Describe the different switches -kb, -kv, -kkv, and -kk to switch on/off keyword expansion.

The things we would like CVS to do, but it doesn't. Explain the following limitations of CVS:

• directories under version control
• renaming files and keeping the history
• atomic commit

The pserver access method is the most common access method but suffers from a number of security issues.

• Understand the level of security that pserver provides.
• Understand the vulnerabilities that pserver suffers from.
• Identify situations in which pserver is appropriate and where it is not appropriate.
• Understand what can happen if pserver is used inappropriately.
• Show awareness of suitable alternatives to the pserver access method.
• Where more secure access methods are used, know how to check if pserver access has been left open

NOT covered: knowledge of the underlying protocols