[cvsnt] Drive-root (e.g., ":local:P:\") CVSROOT support.

Glen Starrett glen.starrett at march-hare.com
Mon Aug 28 16:56:25 BST 2006


Brian Cowan wrote:
> I have a customer using a (I think twice-mapped) drive as his CVS root. 
> He's doing this:
> set CVSROOT=:local:P:\
> Subst P: Y:\Dir1\Dir2

Ouch.  We strongly recommend to NOT use local protocol over network 
drives.  There are a number of problems that can happen, up to 
corrupting your repository and losing entire history of files to 
corruption.  This is a very dangerous configuration.

You should instruct your client to set up a CVSNT server and use a 
standard protocol (e.g. sspi, sserver, or ssh).

> 
> When he runs a tool of ours that hard-codes the cvs get, he gets the 
> following error:
> cvs [checkout aborted]: Local access to network share not supported (Use 
> -N to override this error).

It's telling you to use the -N global switch to override that warning. 
However, note my warnings above.

> 
> So, the questions are:
> 1) Did tricks like the above ever work?

Unfortunately, Yes.

> 2) When did it stop working?

Some time ago the -N was added and the behavior to block by default was 
added when uneducated users had some problems running across a network 
link.  They didn't know any better -- so the warning was added.

> 3) Will setting CVSROOT=:local:Y:\Dir1\Dir2 work?
> 4) If the answer to #3 is "no", what version did it stop working (as 
> I've done #3 in the not-too-distant past)?

See above.

> I seem to recall CVS not liking CVSROOT environment variables pointing 
> to the root of the drive, wanting to be at least one level down.

That is correct.

Regards,

-- 
Glen Starrett


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