CVS Overview

• Basic version control functionality. That is, CVS maintains a history of all changes made to each directory tree it manages. Using this history, CVS can recreate past states of the tree, or show a developer when, why, and by whom a given change was made. If you are familiar with RCS or SCCS, the difference is that CVS operates on entire directory trees, not just single files.
• CVS supports branches, which allow several lines of development to occur in parallel, and provides mechanisms for merging branches back together when desired. CVS can tag the state of the directory tree at a given point and recreate that state. CVS can display the differences between tags or revisions in the standard diff formats.
• Can run scripts which you supply to log CVS operations or enforce site-specific policies.
• Client/server CVS enables developers scattered by geography or slow modems to function as a single team. The version history is stored on a single central server and the client machines have a copy of all the files that the developers are working on. Therefore, the network between the client and the server must be up to perform CVS operations (such as checkins or updates) but need not be up to edit or manipulate the current versions of the files. Clients can perform all the same operations which are available locally.
• Unreserved checkouts, allowing more than one developer to work on the same files at the same time.
• CVS provides a flexible modules database that provides a symbolic mapping of names to components of a larger software distribution. It applies names to collections of directories and files. A single command can manipulate the entire collection.

System requirements

Server: most unix variants
Non-client/server CVS: most unix variants, Windows NT/95
Client: most unix variants, Windows NT/95, OS/2, VMS
Modest CPU and memory requirements