FlexWiki now uses Subversion. You should be reading ConfiguringSubversion instead.

Setting up source control integration with SourceForge is a little tough. Actually, doing it isn't too hard, but figuring out all the steps was. Here's what you need to do:

Understanding Connecting to CVS

SourceForge exposes two ways to connect to their CVS database:

• Unauthenticated. This (confusingly) uses the "password server" authentication mechansim, so your CVS connection string will have a ":pserver:" in it somewhere. (See below for the exact string to use.) It also connects you to the public copy of the source repository, which is read-only, and also lags behind the development source repository by about 5 hours. This makes it basically useless for development
• Authenticated. If you are a developer on FlexWiki, you can provide proof of your identity to SourceForge to get live access and possilbly write access to CVS. There are two variations to this mode. In both of them, you will use a CVS connection string that starts with ":ext:" . (See below for step-by-step instructions.)
• Password authentication. When using password authentication, you enter your password every time you perform a CVS operation. Because you may perform many CVS operations every day, this can get tedious. It is, however, easy because it does not require any special setup.
• Public key authentication. When using public key authentication, you do not use your password to connect to the CVS database. Instead, you use an authentication protocol based on public key cryptography. It's slightly harder to set up, but has the advantages that you can configure it not to ever prompt you for a password, and of being somewhat more secure.

Setting up for CVS Access

Regardless of how you connect to CVS, you will need some sort of CVS client. You can use one of several command line tools, but the FlexWiki team highly recommends TortoiseCVS. TortoiseCVS allows you to manage source control operations by integrating with the Windows Explorer. Operations like retrieving source files and updating them are performed by selecting files in Windows Explorer and navigating a right-click menu. It is far simpler than (and almost as powerful as) using a command-line utility.

Setting up for unauthenticated access

If you just want to download the source, but don't need to post changes back to the repository, use a CVSROOT string like this:

 :pserver:anonymous@flexwiki.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/flexwiki

Note that unauthenticated access means that you are seeing a several-hours-old copy of the repository.

Alternatively, you can download the source as a zipfile from the build machine at http://builds.flexwiki.com${0}

Setting up for Public Key Authentication

What we need to do is the following:

• Create a public/private key pair.
• Upload the public key to your account.
• Set up your client software to use the corresponding private key when authenticating

Software prerequisites

• Download and install some sort of CVS client. I like TortoiseCVS.org.
• Download putty, plink, puttygen from here
• Put them into some directory that's in your PATH

Creating a key pair

• Run puttygen
• Select SSH2-DSA from the options at the bottom
• Hit Generate
• Move the mouse around like it asks you to, to generate randomness
• Decide if you want to protect the private key with a passphrase. The benefit is that even if someone steals the private key from your computer, they can't recover it without knowing the passphrase. The drawback is that you will need to enter the passphrase whenever some piece of software needs to use the private key.
• If you do want to use a passphrase, enter one. Otherwise, leave the passphrase fields empty
• Save the public key in some directory
• Save the private key in some directory
• Close puttygen

Upload the public key to your account

• Go to the SourceForge page for adding keys to your account here
• Cut and paste the public key you generated into the text box. It should start with "ssh-dss" followed by a bunch of gibberish, and it should all be on one line.
• Hit Update
• Go get coffee: keys are updated to all relevant servers on a delay. SourceForge says this should only take about 10 minutes. This only took about 30 seconds when I did it yesterday -- DerekLakin [1-Feb-2005]

Set up your client software to use the key pair

Setting up putty

• Run putty
• Under "Session", enter flexwiki.cvs.sourceforge.net for hostname
• Under "Session", check SSH for Protocol
• Under "Connection", enter your ~SourceForge username for Auto-login username
• Under "SSH", pick 2 only for Preferred SSH protocol version
• Under "Auth", enter the path to the private key you created with putty gen under Private key file for authentication
• Under "Session", type FlexWikiCVS into the box labeled Saved Sessions
• Under "Session", hit Save.

You have now created a profile that associates the private key and all the appropriate settings with the name "FlexWikiCVS". If you want shell access, it's convenient at this point to also do the following:

• Under "Session", change hostname to shell.sourceforge.net
• Under "Session", type SourceForgeShell into the box labeled Saved Sessions
• Under "Session", hit Save.

Which will create a second profile called "shell.sourceforge.net" for access to the SSH server

Testing your setup

• At a command line, run plink FlexWikiCVS
• If it complains about not knowing the server's public key, go ahead and say that you want to trust it
• You should see a message saying "Welcome to cvs.sourceforge.net", followed by a message saying you can't execute anything here. This is fine - just getting connected is good enough.

You're done!

That's it. You should now be able to connect and retrieve stuff from the FlexWiki CVS repository using a connection string like this:

 :ext:FlexWikiCVS:/cvsroot/flexwiki

What CVSROOT Should I Use?

If you are member of the FlexWiki SourceForge project, you can use the following CVSROOT to get access to the "live" repository

 :ext:yourusername@flexwiki.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/flexwiki

You will then be prompted for your password.

Alternatively, if you have set up to use public key authentication as described above, you can use a CVSROOT like this:

 :ext:yourusername@FlexWikiCVS:/cvsroot/flexwiki

What Module Should I Use?

At this time, all developers should be using the FlexWikiCore module.

What Branch Should I Use?

At the time of this writing (2006.04.18) there are two branches in CVS: 'HEAD' and 'branch-1-8'. The HEAD branch contains the code for FlexWiki 2.0, and is the default. The 'branch-1-8' branch contains (unsurprisingly) the code for version 1.8 of FlexWiki. As version 2.0 will be under development for quite some time while we work on version 2.0, the two branches will both be active for a while.

If you are working on FlexWiki 2.0, you should use the HEAD branch. If you are working on FlexWiki 1.8, you should use the 'branch-1-8' branch.

If you need help figuring out which branch you should be using, ask on the FlexWikiUsersMailingList.

For help with how to get the code from a particular branch, see WorkingWithCVSBranches.