Eclipse, cvs, and extssh

[Bruno Haible]

Hi,

As a user of Eclipse, when I check out a repository through Eclipse (the
newest available version), I have the choice between
  - method extssh: Here I'm being asked for my password only once,
  - method ext: Here I'm being asked for my password at every operation,
    often several times in a row.

So it's obvious that I chose 'extssh'.

But the cvs-1.12.13 from ftp.gnu.org does not support this method: When I
try to use the command-line program in a CVS checkout created by Eclipse,
it gives this error message:

  cvs log: Unknown method (`extssh') in CVSROOT.
  cvs log: in directory .:
  cvs log: ignoring CVS/Root because it does not contain a valid root.
  cvs [log aborted]: received interrupt signal

It is a pity that the official cvs program does not support this method,
although it had been reported already more than two years ago [1][2].

I'm therefore using the appended patch, based on the patch by
Joseph P. Skudlarek for cvs-1.11.17 [1].

Mark D. Baushke wrote in [2]:
> CVS has accepted :ext: with an environment variable of CVS_RSH=rsh or
> CVS_RSH=ssh for a very long time as the 'correct' way to do this.

The use of an environment variable to denote part of the protocol is
ill-designed because

  1) If I have different projects checked out from different servers,
     and some of them support ssh as login method and some support only
     rsh, then there is no 'correct' setting of the CVS_RSH environment
     variable that would work for all. But users should not have to set
     environment variables depending on where in their filesystem they
     are currently working.

  2) If Eclipse had followed your declared 'correct' method, the creation
     of a checkout through Eclipse would create a CVS/Root with :ext: -
     and then the "cvs update" or "cvs log" using the command-line program
     would not work. The normal user would have get an error message
     (or a timeout).

Please reconsider this design decision.

Bruno

[1] http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-cvs/2005-11/msg00058.html
[2] http://www.archivum.info/gnu.cvs.help/2006-04/msg00005.html

cvs-1.12.13-extssh.diff
Description: Text Data