What is the best way to mount remote repositories?

[Jean-Claude Gervais]

Hello,


        I work for a company that has offices in many different cities and
the Internet connects them all by VPN.

        There is source-code development work being done at all these sites,
and naturally, we'd like to access each other's source repositories.

        For example, let's consider that there are two sites, initially.

        We've tried installing one CVS server at SITE_A, and then remotely
logging in by CVS and TKCVS from SITE_B, but through the VPN connection, it
is very slow and unreliable. Worse, if ever the route to SITE_A is down (and
it does happen), then the developers at SITE_B are unable to perform any CVS
functions.

        The most important criteria for selecting a strategy to do this are
speed and reliability. How can we achieve this?

        The current strategy we're evaluating is this:

                First we put everything in Site A's CVS, including site B's
projects, with the following organization:

                /cvsroot/software/projects
                    ????SITE_A_PROJECT1
                    ????SITE_A_PROJECT2
                    ????CVSROOT
                    ????SITE_B_PROJECTS

                At SITE_A, we create NFS shares for SITE_A_PROJECT1,
SITE_A_PROJECT2 and CVSROOT.

                At SITE_B, we setup a CVS server.  We move the
SITE_B_PROJECTS folder from SITE_A to SITE_B's CVS root folder and share it
with NFS.

                Then we mount SITE_A_PROJECT1, SITE_A_PROJECT2 and CVSROOT
from SITE_A in SITE_B's CVS root folder.
                At SITE_A, we mount SITE_B_PROJECTS back where it was.

                So after this, both systems look like this:

                SITE_A:

                /cvsroot/software/projects
                    ????SITE_A_PROJECT1 Local folder (fast!)
                    ????SITE_A_PROJECT2 Local folder (fast!)
                    ????CVSROOT         Local folder (fast!)
                    ????SITE_B_PROJECTS Mounted NFS share from SITE_B 

                SITE_B:

                /usr/local/cvsroot
                    ????SITE_A_PROJECT1 Mounted NFS share from SITE_A
                    ????SITE_A_PROJECT2 Mounted NFS share from SITE_A
                    ????CVSROOT         Mounted NFS share from SITE_A (a bit
slow *sniff*)
                    ????SITE_B_PROJECTS Local folder (fast!)


                CVSROOT must be the same for both systems to keep in synch,
so that is why SITE_B must mount it and thus pay a performance penalty.  But
I hope this will not be too dramatic.


                So, the question is: Is this the right way to do this?

        
        We're newbies at this, so please, be gentle!  :-)

        Thank You.

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