Heilan' Coo :: MacCVSClient :: User Guide
  Login Profiles
  Purpose
 

In MacCVSClient a "login profile" stores information about a user's login identity on a CVS server.

In the most simple scenario where you are using a single CVS server with a single CVS root directory, you need a single login profile only.

If you take part in several projects on different CVS servers or using different CVS root directories, you need login profile for each CVS server/root combination.

  Entering and Editing Login Profiles
  To enter a new login profile or to enter existing login profiles, you have to open the MacCVSClient preferences dialog and select the "Login Profiles" preferences panel.
 
 

Login profiles can be accessed using the login profile popup menu (the lower popup menu in the screen shot).

To add a new login profile, press the "New" button. This will create a copy of the currently visible login profile, add it to the end of the popup menu list, and select it so that you can apply changes.

To delete an existing login profile, press the "Delete" button.

Be careful! There is no undo available and if you delete a login profile, it's gone for good. You then have to enter it again by hand, if you want it back.

You can delete all login profiles but the last one, i.e. there is always at least one login profile in the list

To test whether MacCVSClient can use the currently visible login profile to connect to a CVS server, press the "Test" button. After a while, you will be presented with a dialog telling you whether it worked or not. It can take a while for the answer to show up. It all depends on how fast the server replies or how long it takes to determine that the server is unreachable. If a server doesn't anser/can't be reached, you'll get the error result after the connections's timeout expired.

  The Input Fields
 

The topmost input field Descr. carries a short description of this login profile. The sole purpose of this is to show you, the user, what this login profile is. It is not used in any other way. It doesn't have any effect on the login process whatsoever.

How do the other input fields in this dialog relate to the (in)famous CVSROOT environment variable on UNIX systems? Suppose CVSROOT looks like

":pserver:username@hostname:/home/Repository" or
":rsh:username@hostname:/home/Repository".

The different components in this string have to be typed into separate input fields in the login dialog as follows:

pserver/rsh
Select the corresponding connection method in the Method popup menu.
username
Goes into the User field.
hostname
Goes into the Server field.
/home/Repository
Goes into the Root field.

The Port field should normally be 2401 if you use the "pserver" login method. If you use "RSH" as your login method, the default port is 514. If you are unsure, please contact your CVS server administrator. If you are using RSH based login, MacCVSClient will fire up the first CVS binary (executable file named "cvs") it finds in username's path.

If you need a password to connect to the CVS server of a login profile, you have to check the Password check box and and enter the password in the input field. If you choose to save the password in MacCVSClient preferences, you have to check the Save check box.

If you choose to not save the password, MacCVSClient will prompt you to enter the password whenever it needs it the first time after you started the application.

Be reminded, that if you choose to save the password, it will be saved as clear text in the MacCVSClient preferences file on your computer. There is a certain security risk to this. Please think carefully about this before deciding to save your password.

If you should change your mind later and decide you don't want your password saved in your preferences file anymore, just uncheck the Save check box and leave the preferences dialog with the OK button.

The Timeout field shows the timeout value in seconds. This timeout is the span of time MacCVSClient will wait for answers from the CVS server. I find that 90 seconds seems fine in most environments I have worked in. Your mileage may vary, though.

In the Compression popup, you can set zlib based data stream compression. This is particularly useful if you are setting up a login profile that is pointing across the internet or over a modem dialup line. Settings higher than 3 or 4 usually don't yield substantial increase in compression rate, they mainly eat more CPU time.

The Xfer Buffer field shows the size in bytes of the send/receive buffer used by MacCVSClient to connect to the CVS server. For internet connection over relatively slow modem lines, I recommend something like a few KB, for local ethernet connections, I would use higher values. Possible values range from 1024 to 65535.

Finally the Throughput Limit check box and input field should be used only in rare situations. We have experienced problems when using F-Secure SSH over a slow modem dialup internet connection. The optional throughput limit can help out. Please see MacCVSClient and SSH : Throughput Limiting in MacCVSClient for more details.

Rev. 1.12 Copyright © 1997-1998 Fontworks Ltd., © 2000 Jörg Bullmann