4. Alternatives to the Pserver
4.1. Access for developers
Pserver is not a very good method to implement for your fellow developers
to access the repository. You can use CVS's SSH and ext method.
Simply add the user to the server's list of users, add the user
to the file WRITERS, and then they can do the following:
This is a much more secure way for developers to access the
repository.
4.2. Anonymous CVS access by http
There is another way to allow anonymous access to CVS. If there
is an http server and Python installed on the server, you can use
a set of Python CGI scripts called
viewcvs, which allow people to view the CVS repository over
the web, and can generate tarballs for users to download.
There is also a set of Perl CGI scripts that do the same thing
called
cvsweb, but Viewcvs is more mature and is preferred (at
least by me).
4.3. CVSGrab
CVSGrab is an
end-user tool for downloading the CVS repository by a ViewCVS
interface. It is very useful when you are behind a corporate
firewall that blocks the Pserver, as you can just grab the repository
over standard HTTP. The only problem is if it doesn't have a
ViewCVS interface, but most free software
repositories are now on the web, and the few that still use
cvsweb seem to be switching over to ViewCVS.
CVSGrab is written in Java, which may at first be a turn-off to
some people (it is to me), but it seems completely compilable
using GCJ, the Java front-end to GCC.
CVSGrab is a tool that goes hand-in-hand with
ViewCVS. It is an end-user tool, not one that you as a system
administrator or repository administrator would set up and configure.