A.4 Global options
The available cvs_options (that are given to the
left of cvs_command) are:
--allow-root=
rootdir- Specify legal cvsroot directory. See
Password authentication server.
-a
- Authenticate all communication between the client and
the server. Only has an effect on the cvs client.
As of this writing, this is only implemented when using
a GSSAPI connection (see GSSAPI authenticated).
Authentication prevents certain sorts of attacks
involving hijacking the active tcp connection.
Enabling authentication does not enable encryption.
-b
bindir- In cvs 1.9.18 and older, this specified that
rcs programs are in the bindir directory.
Current versions of cvs do not run rcs
programs; for compatibility this option is accepted,
but it does nothing.
-T
tempdir- Use tempdir as the directory where temporary files are
located. Overrides the setting of the
$TMPDIR
environment
variable and any precompiled directory. This parameter should be
specified as an absolute pathname.
(When running client/server, -T affects only the local process;
specifying -T for the client has no effect on the server and
vice versa.)
-d
cvs_root_directory- Use cvs_root_directory as the root directory
pathname of the repository. Overrides the setting of
the
$CVSROOT
environment variable. See Repository.
-e
editor- Use editor to enter revision log information. Overrides the
setting of the
$CVSEDITOR
and $EDITOR
environment variables. For more information, see
Committing your changes.
-f
- Do not read the ~/.cvsrc file. This
option is most often used because of the
non-orthogonality of the cvs option set. For
example, the cvs log option -N (turn off
display of tag names) does not have a corresponding
option to turn the display on. So if you have
-N in the ~/.cvsrc entry for log,
you may need to use -f to show the tag names.
-H
--help
- Display usage information about the specified cvs_command
(but do not actually execute the command). If you don't specify
a command name, cvs -H displays overall help for
cvs, including a list of other help options.
-n
- Do not change any files. Attempt to execute the
cvs_command, but only to issue reports; do not remove,
update, or merge any existing files, or create any new files.
Note that cvs will not necessarily produce exactly
the same output as without -n. In some cases
the output will be the same, but in other cases
cvs will skip some of the processing that would
have been required to produce the exact same output.
-Q
- Cause the command to be really quiet; the command will only
generate output for serious problems.
-q
- Cause the command to be somewhat quiet; informational messages,
such as reports of recursion through subdirectories, are
suppressed.
-r
- Make new working files read-only. Same effect
as if the
$CVSREAD
environment variable is set
(see Environment variables). The default is to
make working files writable, unless watches are on
(see Watches).
-s
variable=
value- Set a user variable (see Variables).
-t
- Trace program execution; display messages showing the steps of
cvs activity. Particularly useful with -n to explore the
potential impact of an unfamiliar command.
-v
--version
- Display version and copyright information for cvs.
-w
- Make new working files read-write. Overrides the
setting of the
$CVSREAD
environment variable.
Files are created read-write by default, unless $CVSREAD
is
set or -r is given.
-x
- Encrypt all communication between the client and the
server. Only has an effect on the cvs client. As
of this writing, this is only implemented when using a
GSSAPI connection (see GSSAPI authenticated) or a
Kerberos connection (see Kerberos authenticated).
Enabling encryption implies that message traffic is
also authenticated. Encryption support is not
available by default; it must be enabled using a
special configure option, --enable-encryption,
when you build cvs.
-z
gzip-level- Set the compression level.
Valid levels are 1 (high speed, low compression) to
9 (low speed, high compression), or 0 to disable
compression (the default).
Only has an effect on the cvs client.