Announcing CVSup 15.2 --------------------- Release 15.2 of CVSup, the CVS-aware network distribution system, is now available. Where to Get CVSup ------------------ CVSup is free software. It is available from the following FTP sites: ftp://hub.FreeBSD.org/pub/CVSup/ (California) ftp://ftp.cs.tu-berlin.de/pub/FreeBSD/CVSup/ (Germany) ftp://ftp.polstra.com/pub/FreeBSD/CVSup/ (slow; avoid if possible) Full sources as well as FreeBSD binaries are available: cvsup-bin-15.2.tar.gz FreeBSD static binaries for the client + GUI cvsup.nogui-bin-15.2.tar.gz FreeBSD static binaries for the client (no GUI) cvsupd-bin-15.2.tar.gz FreeBSD static binaries for the server cvsup-15.2.tar.gz Sources ** The MD5 file signatures for these files are: MD5 (cvsup-bin-15.2.tar.gz) = e92c5afa6fc51894d8edd97d2b29247c MD5 (cvsup.nogui-bin-15.2.tar.gz) = 00a8a2911cd7e4caf8a8c3d7c5dac961 MD5 (cvsupd-bin-15.2.tar.gz) = 1801d60628dbd7b731402a24faa5e6b8 MD5 (cvsup-15.2.tar.gz) = c6db5e798f8136a646947d4beefe6e35 An updated port will appear in the FreeBSD ports and packages collections soon: Port: ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports-current/net/cvsup/ Package: ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/packages-current/net/cvsup-15.2.tgz ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/packages-2.2/net/cvsup-15.2.tgz The FreeBSD package now depends only on the "modula-3-lib" package, a subset of the Modula-3 installation consisting of only the shared libraries. Because of this, you can now install and use the "cvsup" package in a reasonable amount of disk space. The package is much smaller than the statically linked binary distribution, so updates to new versions of CVSup should be more convenient now. The package is the recommended distribution for binary-only users. The static binary distributions may be phased out soon. If you want SOCKS support, you must also install the "modula-3-socks" port or package: Port: ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports-current/lang/modula-3-socks/ Package: ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/packages-current/lang/modula-3-socks-1.0.tgz ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/packages-2.2/lang/modula-3-socks-1.0.tgz SOCKS is supported only under FreeBSD, and only with dynamically linked executables. The static binary distributions do not support SOCKS. ** If you wish to build CVSup from the sources, be sure to read the discussion further on in this announcement. Compatibility with Previous Releases ------------------------------------ This version is believed to interoperate properly with all earlier public releases of CVSup. It is always a good idea to upgrade to the latest release. Bugs are fixed, features are added, and robustness is improved. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother with it. What Has Changed Since the Previous Release? -------------------------------------------- Notable changes in release 15.2: Changed the expansion of the "CVSHeader" RCS keyword so that it deletes "Attic/" from the pathname if it is present. This prevents the expansion from changing on a branch simply because the file was killed or brought back to life on the main branch. A similar change has been made to FreeBSD's RCS and CVS systems. Fixed the handling of file permissions in checkout mode. Now each checked out file's execute bits are set based on the permissions of the corresponding RCS file and the client's umask setting. This means that checked out shell scripts and similar files will be executable as they should be. Fixed the general policy for dealing with file permissions when "preserve" is not set in the supfile. Formerly, the permissions were set when CVSup first created each file, and then ignored after that. Now, CVSup checks the permissions on each update, and sets them properly within the restrictions imposed by the client's umask setting. Made checkout-mode updates more robust against evil manipulations of RCS files by CVS repository administrators. The client now records the revision date as well as the revision number for each checkout-mode file. If the CVS administrator replaces an RCS file with a completely different RCS file, CVSup will notice that the dates of corresponding revision numbers are different and realize that the client's revision m.n doesn't correspond to the server's idea of what revision m.n is. It will do a full checkout of the affected file instead of trying to edit it based on bad information. Formerly, this sort of thing could cause assertion failures and other embarrassments. Fixed a bug in the negotiation of file attribute support which could cause an assertion failure if "preserve" mode was used between a server [or client] running under FreeBSD and a client [or server] running under a non-FreeBSD OS such as Linux. Eliminated this server warning message: "Could not generate edits for foo,v 1.1.2.1 -> 1.1.1.1.2.1: 36: Non-existent revision number 1.1.2.1 -- attempting full checkout". The message was too scary, and it typically didn't represent a situation that required human intervention. Fixed several portability problems, based on experiences with HP-UX 10.20, Linux, Digital Unix, and SunOS. Improved the error messages emitted by the client when a corrupted or truncated "checkouts" file is detected. They now suggest what to do about it. Also eliminated an assertion failure that could arise in this situation. Added extra validity checks for the deltas received from the server, to ensure that the edits will apply cleanly to the client's file before attempting to apply them. This eliminates a few potential assertion failures. What Is CVSup? -------------- CVSup is a software package for distributing and updating collections of files across a network. CVSup is specifically tailored to distributing CVS repositories. By taking advantage of the special properties of the files contained in CVS repositories, CVSup is able to perform updates much faster than traditional systems. It is especially valuable for people with slow Internet connections. CVSup parses and understands the RCS files making up a CVS repository. When updates occur, CVSup extracts new deltas directly from the RCS files on the server and edits them into the client's RCS files. Likewise, CVSup notes the addition of new symbolic tags to the files on the server and sends only the new tags to the client. CVSup is able to merge new deltas and tags from the server with deltas and tags added locally on the client machine. This makes it possible for the client to check local modifications into his repository without their being obliterated by subsequent updates from the server. Note: Although this feature is fully implemented in CVSup, it will probably not be practical to use it until some small changes have been made to CVS. In addition to distributing the RCS files themselves, CVSup is able to distribute specific checked-out versions. The client can specify a symbolic tag, a date, or both and CVSup will extract the appropriate versions from the server's CVS repository. Checked-out versions do not need to be stored on the server since CVSup can extract any version directly from the CVS repository. If the client has an existing checked-out tree, CVSup will apply the appropriate edits to update the tree or transform it into the requested version. Only the differences between the existing version and the desired version are sent across the network. To update non-RCS files, CVSup uses the highly efficient rsync algorithm, developed by Andrew Tridgell and Paul Mackerras. CVSup uses lightweight processes (threads) to implement a streaming protocol across the network. This completely eliminates the delays associated with the lock-step, request-reply form of communication used by many existing protocols, such as sup and NNTP. Information is transferred at the full available speed of the network in both directions at once. Network latency and server response delays are rendered practically irrelevant. CVSup uses the "zlib" compression package to optionally compress all communications. This provides an additional 65-75% compression, on top of the diff-based compression already built into CVSup. For efficiency, all processing is built into the CVSup package itself. Neither the client nor the server executes any other programs. For further information about how CVSup works, see the (somewhat out of date) "Blurb" document in the CVSup distribution. Using CVSup to Maintain FreeBSD Sources --------------------------------------- CVSup servers are currently running at about 20 mirror sites around the world. For an up-to-date list of them, see: http://www.freebsd.org/handbook/mirrors-cvsup.html Using CVSup, you can easily receive or update any of the standard FreeBSD source releases, namely, "cvs", "current", and "stable". The manual page for cvsup(1) describes how to do that. For more detailed instructions, see the section on CVSup in the FreeBSD Handbook: http://www.FreeBSD.org/handbook/cvsup.html Building CVSup from the Sources ------------------------------- CVSup is written in Modula-3, a modern, compiled, object-oriented language. Modula-3 integrates threads, exceptions, and garbage collection, providing an ideal vehicle for this sort of application. Without Modula-3, CVSup would almost certainly not exist today. If you wish to build CVSup from the sources, you will first need to install the free Modula-3 compiler and runtime libraries from DEC SRC. A port is available in the FreeBSD ports collection, in "lang/modula-3". The corresponding package is, of course, available in the packages collection. You will also need version 1.0.4 or later of the "zlib" library. In FreeBSD-2.1.6 and later releases, this library has been incorporated into the system sources, in "src/lib/libz". Prior to that, a FreeBSD port was available in "devel/libz" of the FreeBSD ports collection. For other sources of this library, see the "Install" file. Do not try to use versions earlier than 1.0.4. To build the entire system from source under FreeBSD, simply type "make" in the top-level directory. (That's the directory that has sub-directories named "client" and "server", among others.) To force the executables to be statically linked, set the environment variable "M3FLAGS" to "-DSTATIC". To build the client without the GUI (e.g., if you don't have the X Window System installed on your machine), set it to "-DNOGUI". To do both of these things, set the environment variable to "-DSTATIC -DNOGUI". On non-FreeBSD platforms, you will probably need to build each component by hand. (The Makefiles are quite FreeBSD-specific.) Simply chdir into each of the following subdirectories in the given order and type "m3build": suptcp suplib client server utilities/supconv To build statically linked executables, add "-DSTATIC" to each "m3build" command. To build the client without the GUI (e.g., if you don't have the X Window System installed on your machine) add "-DNOGUI". Portability Issues ------------------ I intend for CVSup to be portable to most POSIX systems. Earlier releases have been run on a number of different platforms, including FreeBSD, Linux, HP-UX, SunOS, Solaris, and DEC OSF/1 ALPHA. In the current release I have attempted to increase rather than decrease portability. Anybody who succeeds in porting CVSup to other systems is encouraged to send his changes to <cvsup-bugs@polstra.com>. As long as the changes are reasonably palatable, they will be incorporated into future CVSup releases. CVSup uses several POSIX-specific functions which may make it more of an effort to port the package to non-POSIX systems such as Win32. These functions include mmap, fork, syslog, stat, and chmod, among others. Status of this Release ---------------------- CVSup was first released publicly in August of 1996. Since then it has seen heavy use, and it has been quite stable. Like all software, though, it is not perfect. Please be prepared to find bugs -- without a doubt, there are some. Please report bugs to <cvsup-bugs@polstra.com>. John Polstra, <jdp@polstra.com> Copyright 1996-1997 John D. Polstra $Id: Announce,v 1.28 1997/09/27 20:43:27 jdp Exp $