[Iluvatar]

So far, I've been taught that if a code base uses multiple coders the only reasonable way to enable it is to have one central person (head coder) review the code changes and implement if it fits. This is a protective measure and stops two or more coders from modifying the same area at the same time. I always thought it was a necessary thing though it slows the process somewhat.

Now I hear rumors there are security and perhaps stability problems with CVS. Any thoughts or discussion about CVS? I think ImmU needs it for Circle as a minimum and should be a standard for all the codebases used since we have multiple coders for a single base.

Iluvatar

[Xanferious]

im no coder but i know my head coder uses it. whats nice about it from what he explained to me is that, you can quickly add ore remove the changes to the codebase and keep track of all the activity that the coders or programmers do. its also a great to catch other coders that are up to no good by installing secert IMP chars in the game and backdoors.
thats just my 2 cents

[Trax]

I find CVS invaluable and helps me manage the code for my mud more easily than merging code together by hand. I have setup my own CVS respository for my staff and secured it similar in fashion to how sourceforge.net has secured thiers.

From the sourceforget.net docs (Sourceforge CVS Services Introduction page Look in the CVS Developer Section) there is mention of insecure connections via pserver (native CVS user/password authentication) which is a seucurity risk.

For other little security notes there is also the security page at the CVShome site (CVS Security @ CVSHome.org) which gives mention to faults in pserver which may allow usrs to gain more access to the system than pserver implies. The documentation for CVS on cvshome.org also documents the security features of CVS, from rsh access pserver and Kerberos.

There are alternatives to CVS, but I myself haven't looked at them too deeply, but they are there to improve upon CVS and fix bugs where they exist. One such project is Subversion (others I've forgotton the names of and can't find my references to them right now )

I'm no CVS expert by a long shot, but those are a couple of resources I've read while setting up the stunnel and repository, hopefully they'll provide some information thatis of some use.

[Koryon]

The best advantage I've found so far to using CVS (other than the obvious concurrent version idea) is the way you can wrap it in ssh, and how easy it makes uploading/downloading, I code in cygwin on my home machine, transfer with my host,

Originally Posted by cvs -d :ext:koryon@gryphonmud.com:/home/koryon/CVSROOT checkout cvagrant and cvs -d :ext:koryon@gryphonmud.com:/home/koryon/CVSROOT commit *

The ext signifies an external connection program, just set the environment variable CVS_RSH to be 'ssh' and viola, an ssh password prompt comes up, cvs starts up vim (or your editor of choice) you can add in the changes done, and that's that, no time consuming tarballs, ftp, even on modem it's great since you'll usually only transfer one or two files at a time.

As for security (like I said a little while ago ) set up some alternate accounts, like immucirc, immurom, immusmaug, blah, and those accounts each have access to the main CVS repository for the circle, rom, smaug muds, then somebody (heh, there's no innocent looking smily) logs into the main account and updates the main mud from the repository (likely after testing the code in the repository).