2.9.4 Direct connection with GSSAPI

GSSAPI is a generic interface to network security systems such as Kerberos 5. If you have a working GSSAPI library, you can have CVS connect via a direct TCP connection, authenticating with GSSAPI.

To do this, CVS needs to be compiled with GSSAPI support; when configuring CVS it tries to detect whether GSSAPI libraries using Kerberos version 5 are present. You can also use the ‘--with-gssapi’ flag to configure.

The connection is authenticated using GSSAPI, but the message stream is not authenticated by default. You must use the -a global option to request stream authentication.

The data transmitted is not encrypted by default. Encryption support must be compiled into both the client and the server; use the ‘--enable-encrypt’ configure option to turn it on. You must then use the -x global option to request encryption.

GSSAPI connections are handled on the server side by the same server which handles the password authentication server; see Setting up the server for password authentication. If you are using a GSSAPI mechanism such as Kerberos which provides for strong authentication, you will probably want to disable the ability to authenticate via cleartext passwords. To do so, create an empty ‘CVSROOT/passwd’ password file, and set SystemAuth=no in the config file (see section The CVSROOT/config configuration file).

The GSSAPI server uses a principal name of cvs/hostname, where hostname is the canonical name of the server host. You will have to set this up as required by your GSSAPI mechanism.

To connect using GSSAPI, use the ‘:gserver:’ method. For example,

cvs -d :gserver:faun.example.org:/usr/local/cvsroot checkout foo