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1.3. Concurrent Versions System (CVS)

Concurrent Versions System, commonly abbreviated as CVS, is a centralized version control system with a client-server architecture. It is a successor to the older Revision Control System (RCS), and allows multiple developers to cooperate on the same project while keeping track of every change made to the files that are under revision control.

1.3.1. Installing and Configuring CVS

Installing the cvs Package

In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, CVS is provided by the cvs package. To install the cvs package and all its dependencies on your system, type the following at a shell prompt as root:
yum install cvs
This installs a command line CVS client, a CVS server, and other related tools to the system.

Setting Up the Default Editor

When using CVS on the command line, certain commands such as cvs import or cvs commit require the user to write a short log message. To determine which text editor to start, the cvs client application first reads the contents of the environment variable $CVSEDITOR, then reads the more general environment variable $EDITOR, and if none of these is set, it starts vi.
To persistently change the value of the $CVSEDITOR environment variable, run the following command:
echo "export CVSEDITOR=command" >> ~/.bashrc
This adds the export CVSEDITOR=command line to your ~/.bashrc file. Replace command with a command that runs the editor of your choice (for example, emacs). Note that for this change to take effect in the current shell session, you must execute the commands in ~/.bashrc by typing the following at a shell prompt:
. ~/.bashrc

Example 1.14. Setting up the default text editor

To configure the CVS client to use Emacs as a text editor, type:
~]$ echo "export CVSEDITOR=emacs" >> ~/.bashrc
~]$ . ~/.bashrc