git cvsserver

Pretend to be CVS so old clients can pull.

🎯 What & why

Serve a Git repo as a fake CVS server so legacy clients can pull from it. Niche bridge for shops still wedded to CVS tooling.

🧠 Mental model

A pserver-shaped facade over Git that speaks just enough CVS to satisfy old clients. Read-mostly: write support exists but is fragile and best avoided.

🛠️ Synopsis

git cvsserver [<options>] [pserver|server] [<directory> ...]

Typically launched from xinetd/inetd as the pserver command. Authenticates
against ~/.cvspasswd, then maps a Git repo into a CVS-shaped namespace.
Requires SQLite (default) or another DBI backend to cache state.

🎚️ Switches & options

Flag	What it does
`--base-path <path>`	Strip prefix from CVS module paths so clients see clean module names.
`--strict-paths`	Refuse to serve directories outside the path list passed on the command line.
`--export-all`	Serve every Git repo found, not just those with the magic export marker.
`-V, --version`	Print version and exit.
`--export-marks <file>`	Write the internal commit-to-CVS-rev mapping out for inspection.
`--no-strict-paths`	⚠️ Allow clients to escape the served directory list. Almost never what you want on a public box.

📦 Subcommands

pserver — Run as a CVS pserver (the typical xinetd invocation).

git cvsserver pserver /srv/git

server — Run as a plain CVS server over an already-authenticated transport.

git cvsserver server /srv/git

💡 Use cases

Letting an ancient IDE that only speaks CVS check out from a modern Git repo.
Migrating a team in stages: Git is the source of truth, CVS clients still work read-only.
Supporting a build system or release tool whose CVS integration nobody dares rewrite.
Bridging an air-gapped CVS-only contributor while the upstream lives in Git.

🧪 Examples

Enable on a repo

git config --bool gitcvs.enabled true

Pick the DBI driver and DB name

git config gitcvs.dbDriver SQLite && git config gitcvs.dbName %Ggitcvs.%m.sqlite

Run via xinetd (server line)

server = /usr/bin/git-cvsserver pserver --base-path=/srv/git --export-all

Client checkout

cvs -d :pserver:alice@127.0.0.1:/myrepo co master

🎓 Recommendations

Treat it as read-only. Writes go through fragile CVS semantics and break easily on merges and renames.
Set gitcvs.dbDriver and gitcvs.dbName explicitly; the per-branch state cache will balloon if you do not.
Restrict access with --strict-paths and a real ~/.cvspasswd; never expose pserver to the open internet.

🪤 Common pitfalls

Forgetting gitcvs.enabled=true: the daemon will reject every checkout with a confusing error.
Using a global SQLite path so multiple branches stomp each other's revision cache.
Assuming CVS commits round-trip cleanly back into Git; tag and merge handling are lossy.

🔗 Related modules

📝 Quiz

Hit each option, then Check answers. Score is recorded; Next is always open.