Last updated: 9 Apr 2003

WinCVS From Home

Before you can setup WinCVS to access your cvs repository from home, there are several steps you must complete.

• Download and install the SSH Client from ssh.com
• Download and install WinCVS version 1.2

There is also documentation available here on how to use WinCVS.

Generating Your SSH Keys

1. Open the ssh client and connect to:

cssgate.tacoma.washington.edu

2. Generate and upload your key:
   1. Select Edit/Settings from the file menu

   2. Under Global settings/User Authentication select Keys

   3. Press the Generate New... button.
      1. Press the Next button
      2. In the Key Type drop-down box select:

      RSA

      3. In the Key Length drop-down box select:

      1024

      4. Press the Next button
      5. After it is finished generating the key, press the Next button
      6. Give the key a filename (For example: id_rsa_home_cvs) and press Next (Don't enter a passphrase)
      7. Select yes when prompted
      8. Press the Upload... button and change the destination folder from .ssh2 to .ssh and press Upload
      9. Press the Finish button
      10. Press the Configure button, then press OK twice

   4. Convert and Authorize Your Key

   In your ssh session with cssgate:

   1. Change to the .ssh directory under your home directory
   2. You should see your key listed
   3. Type the following command at the prompt:

   ssh-keygen -i -f your_key_filename >> authorized_keys

   The double ">>" will append your key to the authorized_keys file without overwriting the existing key list

Configuring WinCVS

1. Double-click on the WinCVS icon

2. Configure CVS in WinCVS Preferences (also available from file menu Admin/Preferences...):
   1. On the General tab, Enter the CVSROOT: field, type the following, substituting your login name for "uwnetid"

      :ext:uwnetid@cssgate.tacoma.washington.edu:/home/UWTCSS/uwnetid/cvs
          

      For example, for uwnetid "test0002":

      :ext:test0002@cssgate.tacoma.washington.edu:/home/UWTCSS/test0002/cvs
          

      This tells WinCVS that you are referencing an external server (cssgate) via your login account (test0002) there, and defines the respository to be your home directory's cvs subdirectory.

   2. In Authentication: drop-down box, select:

      SSH server
          

      This informs WinCVS of how you will be authenticating yourself to the CVS server.

   3. On the Ports tab, check the box to the left of Check for an alternate rsh name

   4. In the field to the right of Check for an alternate rsh name, enter:

      ssh2.exe
          

      This is the command that, together with the public key authentication set up above, will enable CVS commands from our client Windows computer to be issued to the CVS server.

   5. Click on the OK button to save the preferences. If your uwnetid was "test0002", you would see in the log window:

      NEW CVSROOT: ext:test0002@cssgate.tacoma.washington.edu:
      /home/UWTCSS/test0002/cvs (ssh authentication)
          

3. Check communication with the server by creating your CVS repository via the file menu Create/Create a new repository... item
   1. Click on the OK button to initialize the repository

   2. In the log window, you should see:

      cvs -d :ext:test0002@cssgate.tacoma.washington.edu:/home/UWTCSS/test0002/cvs init
      
      *****CVS exited normally with code 0*****
          

      If you don't, you probably mistyped something in the Preferences, or the full path to ssh2.exe needs to be added to the system path; read the messages preceding the CVS exited message to get an idea about what went wrong.

At this point, you are finished with configuring CVS and can work with it.

Note that when you add modules, the path is relative to your CVSROOT, so you should not specify an absolute path name when prompted.

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