Re: CVS file locking question

[Larry Jones]

Guy Gardner writes:
> 
> We are thinking of having the main repository on an NT box and then check out
> to individual Powerbooks running Mac OS X (ie. BSD Unix under the hood) and
> then commit changes back into the NT-based repository. In order to gain access
> to the NT files system we are using a product called Sharity that allows us to
> map NT disk volumes so that the Macs can get to them. The one down side is
> that Sharity does not support file locking at all (read or write file locks
> are ignored by it entirely).

Using a network filesystem to share a repository is a recipe for
disaster; we've had many reports of corrupted repository files due to
network file system bugs.  I strongly advise you to set up some form of
client/server CVS instead.  You can find a version of CVS that will run
as a server on NT at <http://www.cvsnt.com/>, but you'd likely have
fewer problems running the server on a Unix platform.

> Now to the question at hand:
> Does CVS at any time rely on read or write locks on files in the repository to
> run properly? If it uses some other method (IE. Existent of lock files rather
> than actual locks on files) then we might be able to use this combination but
> if not then maybe we'll want to use a Mac OS X server to hold the repository
> so that file locks work as CVS would need them.

CVS does not use file locking.  Rather, it creates specially named files
and directories to serve as locks.  However, I still recommend using
client/server CVS instead.

-Larry Jones

That's one of the remarkable things about life.  It's never so
bad that it can't get worse. -- Calvin