Re: [cvs pserver] unrecognized auth response

[Mark D. Baushke]

<#part sign=pgp address@hidden>
Hon Seng Phuah <address@hidden> writes:

> "Mark D. Baushke" <address@hidden> wrote in message news:<address@hidden>...
> > As user root, outside of cvs, are you able to read the file
> > /pgfs3/asic3/users/cvs/CVSROOT/config while you are logged into host
> > pglc8004 ?
> 
> I cannot login as root as I do not have root password. When I login to
> the pglc8004 as my own user name, I can view the file,
> /pgfs3/asic3/users/cvs/CVSROOT/config.

If you can verify that the file is not being NFS mounted, then that
might be enough information. (I am assuming that it is NFS mounted and
that the mount point maps user root to user nobody which does not have
any access to the mounted filesystem).

> > If the directory is NFS mounted, it is possible that root does not have
> > permissions to one or more of the intermediate directories leading to
> > the config file.
> 
> I will have to check with my system administrator. If the root has the
> file permission, what can the possible causes?

If root has the ability to read that file, then the error message from
cvs:

 > cvs [login aborted]: unrecognized auth response from pglc8004: cvs
 > pserver: cannot open /pgfs3/asic3/users/cvs/CVSROOT/config: Permission
 > denied

does not make any sense at all. That message means that root is not able
to read one or more of the directories /pgfs3 /pgfs3/asic3
/pgfs3/asic3/users /pgfs3/asic3/users/cvs /pgfs3/asic3/users/cvs/CVSROOT
or the file /pgfs3/asic3/users/cvs/CVSROOT/config itself.

If the underlying mount point had bad permissions, then your userid
would not be able to read the file, so that is unlikely to be the
problem.

If user root is actually able to read the
/pgfs3/asic3/users/cvs/CVSROOT/config file directly, then you will
probably need to do a bit more debugging (possibly as user root) to
determine the problem.

Of course, you could just forget about using :pserver: which is fairly
insecure and go to using :ext: and providing unique userids on pglc8004
for any user that needs access to this repository. (Hint: I am not a fan
of :pserver: and believe it to be insecure to ever have cvs run as user
root.)

        -- Mark