Re: repository surfing

[Eric Siegerman]

On Wed, Jun 20, 2001 at 05:04:40PM -0700, Schwenk, Jeanie wrote:
> I've got two engineers here who want to be able to just view the files in
> the repository without checking them out.  These are ex-ClearCase users and,
> let me quote  "I could do that in ClearCase." [...] One of them
> looked at a file (i.e. the filename,v)

Well, I don't know for sure, never having used ClearCase, but
from what people here have said, I *strongly* doubt it lets you
do this (or its logical equivalent, i.e. giving users direct,
unmediated access to its internal data structures).

But it sounds as though looking at the repo per se isn't what
these folks want; it's only a means to an end:

>  They don't want to have to checkout to view files.

One other way to provide this would be a WWW-based interface to
CVS.  There are a couple of these available; two are cvsweb and
bonsai:
        http://stud.fh-heilbronn.de/~zeller/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/
        http://www.mozilla.org/bonsai.html


> "Doesn't matter." ... they want to look at the files
> in the repository without checking them out and without having 'all that
> junk' in the file.

Point out to them that this is the logical equivalent of using
"more" on an Oracle database.  They just *think* they can get
away with it because it's a bit less obvious that the contents
are not meant for human consumption.


> I'm also open to good arguments against allowing it.

The best argument is to flat-out prevent it :-)  Move the repo to
a server on which they don't have general shell access.  Use CVS
client/server, with SSH as the connection mechanism.  I don't
recall how, but you can set SSH up so that the *only* command
they're allowed to run on that particular box is "cvs".  You
might even be able to restrict it to "cvs server", but I'm not
sure about that.

If they still insist, even with a WWW interface, then NFS-mount
the repo read-only on the machines they use.  That way, at least
they can't break anything.  (Using "more" on an Oracle database
is at least better than using vi or emacs :-)

--

|  | /\
|-_|/  >   Eric Siegerman, Toronto, Ont.        address@hidden
|  |  /
With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not
necessarily a good idea.
        - RFC 1925 (quoting an unnamed source)