Php calling cvs checkout

Anon

We are using cvs to control some of our apache config files. I am trying to set up a php page to allow us to make changes to these files online (for virtual domain hosting). For some reason I cannot get php to execute system("cvs checkout dir"). I have tried using both system and exec and calling checkout indirectly (running a perl or sh script to checkout the directory and calling the script through a php sys call.

No luck. Very confused.

Any reason this won't work??

thanks brad

Anon

Add the '-d' option to cvs to help him to locate where the CVS repository is located. This setting is usually transparent to the user through CVSROOT env variable.
In addition, you may need to check if you need to perform a 'vcs login' before using "checkout".

Regards,
Jeff.

Anon

Um, I'm no expert on cvs, but i use it. I would first make sure that you have read (or write) permissions in CVS for the web user and that you log the web user in before the checkout.

The better way to do this is have the web user provide the cvs id and pwd then use those on the cvs command line.

To debug, echo system("cvs ..."); to see if you're getting an error message.

Another thing, if you don't have write permissions for the dir, can you check out a file? This is only a guess/question as I avoid command line CVS.

If you get this working, how about sharing the code? I'd love to put a gpl php based cvs ci/co out there.

Anon

system("cvs -d /home/cvs/cvsroot checkout virtual-apache > /dev/null"); worked

The CVSROOT variable was set in my web shell but apparently that doesn't carry over when web is running a php script.

thanks for the help

Anon

an excellent idea. however, if you're concerned about security (as I often am), then it would be a good idea to capitalize upon this idea by NOTprompting for the user/pw for the cvs user, but rather require an htpasswd type deal with a totally separate username/pw than the cvs account. also making sure that when the user logs out of that php session, that php logs the cvs client out (prevent a race condition or something). hope this helps 🙂

Tom Anderson wrote:

[snip]

The better way to do this is have the web user provide the
cvs id and pwd then use those on the cvs command line.

To debug, echo system("cvs ..."); to see if you're getting an
error message.
[snip]
If you get this working, how about sharing the code? I'd
love to put a gpl php based cvs ci/co out there.

likewise. 😉

Anon

So I lied...
system("cvs -d /home/cvs/cvsroot checkout virtual-apache > /dev/null"); Appears to checkout the directory but it is EMPTY. The only file in the dir is CVS.

I have also tried a sys call (and exec and backtics) to execute a perl script which in turn runs cvs checkout but that doesn't do anything.
The goal of this is just to checkout a directory containing some scripts that modify our webserver and check them back in. (adding a user)
I run pwd and whoami and it returns web as user and the directory the .php and .pl are located.

Anon

I am working on the exact same issue, and have given it some thought but am equally stumped. If I can checkout a module from a shell script, why the #$%@ can't I do it from system()?!

My current line of thought is that it's probably a user permissions thing. If my apache runs as 'nobody', is it safe to assume that system calls from PHP run as 'nobody' too? Does 'nobody' need any permissions/ protocols set to use cvs? (I set my target folder as chmod 777 as a test, but still no dice.)

Incidentally, I've installed mod_cvs for apache (which is supposed to do this job), but can't get that to work either.

I've done CGI before, but I'm a relative cvs and PHP newbie, so please be gentle. Will watch this thread with interest, and let you know if I discover anything.

Anon

My apache server runs as user web and I have printed the results of system(pwd) to confirm that the php script is running as web also.

I was able to get the directory I wanted checked out but when I opened it, EMPTY.  Very frustrating.

Anon

Here's the closest I've gotten:

-Give the web user permissions to the cvs module
-system("cvs -d (path to cvs) checkout (module)");
-system("pwd") shows current directory
-system("whoami") shows correct user

I've gotten a perl CGI to do mostly what I want:
-system("cvs -d (path) checkout (module) > /dev/null");

I've logged in from cgi-bin and ran the cgi script and the files appear under the cgi bin. Unfortunately the same doesn't happen under php.

I'm running redhat 6.2 with php 3.0.15
-Ben

Anon

php4 seems to be the answer

Anon

So, how can be done with php 4? I want to checkout a module from a local cvs repository using php. I tried with system() but there is no feedback. Can anyone give me a hint?
Regards.

Anon

I haven't put it to use yet but I was able
to get php4 to do a system() call and checkout
a cvs directory.
system("cvs -d /home/cvs/cvsroot checkout virtual-apache > /dev/null");
Make sure to to try it with the -d flag to
specify your cvsroot. I like to pipe the
out put to dev/null so we don't have to look at it.

Anon

Hmm...
I found up, that this command works only if I add -w attribute to module directory in cvs. Does anybody know why?

Anon

Hi !

I got the same too ....

I read the thread that you say that php4 works well. I have php 4.0.6 and apache
but the directory is empty. What have you done in order to work?

I used the command

system("cvs -d /path/to/cvsroot checkout ModuleName > /dev/null");

Bye

Joao