Sample application: CVS

The reason why fsh was written was to make it possible to use remote CVS fast and securely. This chapter outlines all necessary steps towards that end. It is assumed that you already have a working CVS repository on a server, and that CVS is installed on the client as well.

• Install fsh on the server and client. Make sure it exists in your default path.
• Make sure you can log in on the server from the client with ssh without issuing a password. I personally recommend the use of ssh-agent. You can set it up like this: Run ssh-agent on the client. Create a secret key with ssh-keygen if you have not already done so. Run ssh-add to add the key to the agent. Connect to the server. Place the output of ssh-add -l in `.ssh/authorized_keys' on the server. You should now be able to log in without issuing the password.
• Test that you really can log in to the server from the client.

  bash$ ssh server.domain echo it is working
  it is working
  bash$
  

• Make sure that in.fshd is found when you log in to the server.

  bash$ ssh server.domain in.fshd
  fsh 1
  

  Once you receive the line fsh 1 you can press end-of-file to end the session.
• Start a tunnel to the remote system.

  bash$ fshd server.domain
  Connection established
  

• Switch to another screen (or virtual console, or xterm, or whatever) on the client. Set the environment variable CVS_RSH to the value fsh:

  bash$ export CVS_RSH=fsh
  

• Run cvs to export a module.

  bash$ cvs -d server.domain:/path/to/cvs/repository co module-name
  

• Access the module and experience the speed.

  bash$ cd module-name
  bash$ cvs log foo.c
  bash$ cvs status bar.c
  

  If you switch back to the screen running fshd, you will notice that a few lines of texts was written each time a remote command was executed.

If you are using a modem or a slow internet connection to connect to the remote server, you probably want to use Compression in `.ssh/config'. See ssh(1).

Go to the first, previous, next, last section, table of contents.