Importing from CVS and Advanced Git Repository Management

https://github.com/andreyvit/cvsps[https://github.com/andreyvit/cvsps] and make sure it is in your path. Then cd to a checked out CVS working directory of the project you are interested in and run linkgit:git-cvsimport[1]: ------------------------------------------- $ git cvsimport -C <destination> <module> ------------------------------------------- This puts a Git archive of the named CVS module in the directory <destination>, which will be created if necessary. The import checks out from CVS every revision of every file. Reportedly cvsimport can average some twenty revisions per second, so for a medium-sized project this should not take more than a couple of minutes. Larger projects or remote repositories may take longer. The main trunk is stored in the Git branch named `origin`, and additional CVS branches are stored in Git branches with the same names. The most recent version of the main trunk is also left checked out on the `master` branch, so you can start adding your own changes right away. The import is incremental, so if you call it again next month it will fetch any CVS updates that have been made in the meantime. For this to work, you must not modify the imported branches; instead, create new branches for your own changes, and merge in the imported branches as necessary. If you want a shared repository, you will need to make a bare clone of the imported directory, as described above. Then treat the imported directory as another development clone for purposes of merging incremental imports. Advanced Shared Repository Management ------------------------------------- Git allows you to specify scripts called "hooks" to be run at certain points. You can use these, for example, to send all commits to the shared repository to a mailing list. See linkgit:githooks[5]. You can enforce finer grained permissions using update hooks. See link:howto/update-hook-example.html[Controlling access to branches using update hooks]. Providing CVS Access to a Git Repository ---------------------------------------- It is also possible to provide true CVS access to a Git repository, so that developers can still use CVS; see linkgit:git-cvsserver[1] for details. Alternative Development Models ------------------------------ CVS users are accustomed to giving a group of developers commit access to a common repository. As we've seen, this is also possible with Git. However, the distributed nature of Git allows other development models, and you may want to first consider whether one of them might be a better fit for your project. For example, you can choose a single person to maintain the project's primary public repository. Other developers then clone this repository and each work in their own clone. When they have a series of changes that they're happy with, they ask the maintainer to pull from the branch containing the changes. The maintainer reviews their changes and pulls them into the primary repository, which other developers pull from as necessary to stay coordinated. The Linux kernel and other projects use variants of this model. With a small group, developers may just pull changes from each other's repositories without the need for a central maintainer. SEE ALSO -------- linkgit:gittutorial[7], linkgit:gittutorial-2[7], linkgit:gitcore-tutorial[7], linkgit:gitglossary[7], linkgit:giteveryday[7], link:user-manual.html[The Git User's Manual] GIT --- Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite

This section describes how to import a CVS project into Git using `git-cvsimport`, manage a shared Git repository, and use advanced features such as hooks and update hooks to enforce permissions and automate tasks, as well as alternative development models and providing CVS access to a Git repository.