CVS : Setting up Eclipse and TortoiseCVS for Freepository

One of the great functions of Eclipse IDE is that it can be tightly integrated to the any repository, which is very useful especially you want to share your codes with others and works on them together. Even, CVS is a very useful tool for your own since you can easily track the changes you make your source codes while you are developing your programs on Eclipse. Here, in this blog we try to set up a CVS system on Windows XP and we will explore the usage of it within different programs. Notice that in order to this we use the service provided by Freepository which is the perfect online CVS repository service that you can deploy your codes.

Requirements

First of all the instructions provided here is on Windows XP machine so I do not know whether it can be used in other operation systems but it should work if you apply some modifications whenever necessary for your system.

The programs that you should have during this process are Eclipse, TortoiseCVS. The versions of these programs that I have are:
TortoiseCVS 1.8.26 (CVSNT 2.5.03 Build 2260)
Eclipse 3.1.2

Also you need an account on Freepository. And you should have at least one installed repository. During this blog the name of the repository I have is "cvsroot". In order to use it for Eclipse or TortoiseCVS, we need to see the parameters of that repository. To do that, in the website of the Freepository, we select the repository "cvsroot" and then click "My cvsroot". If it is the first time, the server warns you that you should first create secure entries. Thus, you should click the link left to "My cvsroot" which is "Secure ID entries". Then you can click "My cvsroot". If everything goes well, then you can have a table as following which gives you the parameters you need to configure Eclipse or TortoiseCVS:


We will return these parameters later during the installation.

Installation Process

First of all, in order to use CVS function on Windows machine, we need to set up CVSNT. Since the installation of TortoiseCVS does this already, we do not need to install it separately.

Configuring TortoiseCVS
After installing TortoiseCVS and restarting the PC, we move on any folder in any directory in the file system and right click on the mouse.

Then select "CVS" > "Make new Module". The screen will look like as the following:

Here you should supply the following information:
Protocol : SSL(:sserver:)
Protocol parameters : version=1
Server : freepository.com
Port : the port number that you see in the table of parameters of your Freepository repository.
Repository folder : the information under "fq cvsroot" of the table above.
User name : your user name.
Module : if you already have a module, then write its name or write "." (without quotation marks).

When you click "OK", TortoiseCVS will attempt to connect to the Freepository Server and prompt for the password. Write your account password and get a connection to the repository. If everything goes successfully you will have a connection to the repository. Again in an any folder right click on an empty place and click to "CVS checkout" to see if everything works fine.

Configuring the Eclipse

Before configuring the Eclipse, we need to install CVS SSL plug-in for Eclipse. To download the version of that plug-in for the usage of Eclipse 3.1, click the link here:
http://home.arcor.de/rolf_wilms/cvsssl/rwi.eclipse.team.ccvs.ssl_3.1.0.zip
After downloading the plug-in, extract the context to the Eclipse's "plugins" folder and restart the Eclipse.

To start configuring the Eclipse, first of all we need to switch to CVS perspective by "Window" > "Open Perspective" > "Other" > "CVS Repository Exploring".
In the left pane, right click on an empty place and select "New" > "Repository Location". The screen should look like this:


The settings should be as the following:
Host : freepository.com
Repository path : the information under "fq cvsroot" of the table above
User : your Freepository account name
Password : your password
Connection type : cvs-sserver
Use port : the port number that you see in the table of parameters of your Freepository repository
Also check "Validate connection on finish" and "Save password" settings for your inconvenience.

Just after that click "Finish" and if everything goes well, you can establish a connection to your Freepository repository from Eclipse.


After that you can create new projects and deploy them to your CVS repositories. I will discuss the usages of CVS repositories and modules both on the Eclipse projects and TortoiseCVS in further blogs.