Allow root question

[Edward MacGillivray]

I am trying to setup our cvs (p)server after upgrading to RedHat 7.3 and I can 
not get the configuration to be like the way it was previously installed (on 
RedHat 7.0, with a previous version of cvs).

I have successfully configured it so that cvs works under xinetd, however the 
problem is in regard to the "root" of the repository.  Previously the root 
was /cvsroot, and now when I ask for a status of already checked out material 
it indicates that the root is unknown.  This I understand is because the 
--allow-root argument is /path/to/root/jail/cvsroot.  If I manually change 
the CVS/root files to use the full path (/path/to/root/jail/cvsroot), it then 
performs that status normally.

The problem is that I do not want the -d argument (or the $CVSROOT) to include 
the full path of the root jail.  I want :pserver:address@hidden:/cvsroot to map 
to 
/path/to/root/jail/cvsroot on the server.  This is how it used to be 
configured, using cvsd under xinetd not cvs under xinetd.  I have tried to 
use cvsd under xinetd with this setup but cvsd never responds to telnet 
requests on port 2401 and never works with the cvs command.

The reason for this is two fold, first why should users have to remember the 
full path to the repository, the server is a server and it should know where 
the root jail is.  Second, if this can not be done, then all the locations 
that have previously checked out material from the repository will have to 
either re-checkout, or edit all the CVS/root files to point at the new root.

The closest thing to documentation on how to set up a cvs pserver is examples 
of what people use for in their xinetd.d/cvspserver file.  These have gotten 
me this far, but it appears that documentation on how to administrate a cvs 
server and what can be done does not exist.  For instance, I have found zero 
information about the --allow-root switch in the cvs command, even after 
checking the man page, the executable itself, and cvshome.org.  Were it not 
for the examples of the xinetd.d/cvspserver I would not even know it existed.

thanks
mac