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+gitcvs-migration(7)
+===================
+
+NAME
+----
+gitcvs-migration - git for CVS users
+
+SYNOPSIS
+--------
+[verse]
+'git cvsimport' *
+
+DESCRIPTION
+-----------
+
+Git differs from CVS in that every working tree contains a repository with
+a full copy of the project history, and no repository is inherently more
+important than any other. However, you can emulate the CVS model by
+designating a single shared repository which people can synchronize with;
+this document explains how to do that.
+
+Some basic familiarity with git is required. Having gone through
+linkgit:gittutorial[7] and
+linkgit:gitglossary[7] should be sufficient.
+
+Developing against a shared repository
+--------------------------------------
+
+Suppose a shared repository is set up in /pub/repo.git on the host
+foo.com. Then as an individual committer you can clone the shared
+repository over ssh with:
+
+------------------------------------------------
+$ git clone foo.com:/pub/repo.git/ my-project
+$ cd my-project
+------------------------------------------------
+
+and hack away. The equivalent of 'cvs update' is
+
+------------------------------------------------
+$ git pull origin
+------------------------------------------------
+
+which merges in any work that others might have done since the clone
+operation. If there are uncommitted changes in your working tree, commit
+them first before running git pull.
+
+[NOTE]
+================================
+The 'pull' command knows where to get updates from because of certain
+configuration variables that were set by the first 'git clone'
+command; see `git config -l` and the linkgit:git-config[1] man
+page for details.
+================================
+
+You can update the shared repository with your changes by first committing
+your changes, and then using the 'git push' command:
+
+------------------------------------------------
+$ git push origin master
+------------------------------------------------
+
+to "push" those commits to the shared repository. If someone else has
+updated the repository more recently, 'git push', like 'cvs commit', will
+complain, in which case you must pull any changes before attempting the
+push again.
+
+In the 'git push' command above we specify the name of the remote branch
+to update (`master`). If we leave that out, 'git push' tries to update
+any branches in the remote repository that have the same name as a branch
+in the local repository. So the last 'push' can be done with either of:
+
+------------
+$ git push origin
+$ git push foo.com:/pub/project.git/
+------------
+
+as long as the shared repository does not have any branches
+other than `master`.
+
+Setting Up a Shared Repository
+------------------------------
+
+We assume you have already created a git repository for your project,
+possibly created from scratch or from a tarball (see
+linkgit:gittutorial[7]), or imported from an already existing CVS
+repository (see the next section).
+
+Assume your existing repo is at /home/alice/myproject. Create a new "bare"
+repository (a repository without a working tree) and fetch your project into
+it:
+
+------------------------------------------------
+$ mkdir /pub/my-repo.git
+$ cd /pub/my-repo.git
+$ git --bare init --shared
+$ git --bare fetch /home/alice/myproject master:master
+------------------------------------------------
+
+Next, give every team member read/write access to this repository. One
+easy way to do this is to give all the team members ssh access to the
+machine where the repository is hosted. If you don't want to give them a
+full shell on the machine, there is a restricted shell which only allows
+users to do git pushes and pulls; see linkgit:git-shell[1].
+
+Put all the committers in the same group, and make the repository
+writable by that group:
+
+------------------------------------------------
+$ chgrp -R $group /pub/my-repo.git
+------------------------------------------------
+
+Make sure committers have a umask of at most 027, so that the directories
+they create are writable and searchable by other group members.
+
+Importing a CVS archive
+-----------------------
+
+First, install version 2.1 or higher of cvsps from
+link:http://www.cobite.com/cvsps/[http://www.cobite.com/cvsps/] and make
+sure it is in your path. Then cd to a checked out CVS working directory
+of the project you are interested in and run linkgit:git-cvsimport[1]:
+
+-------------------------------------------
+$ 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.txt[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],
+link:everyday.html[Everyday Git],
+link:user-manual.html[The Git User's Manual]
+
+GIT
+---
+Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite.