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# All environment variables which affect CVS

This is a complete list of all environment variables that affect CVS.

`$CVSIGNORE`
  A whitespace-separated list of file name patterns that CVS should ignore. See section Ignoring files via cvsignore.
`$CVSWRAPPERS`
  A whitespace-separated list of file name patterns that CVS should treat as wrappers. See section The cvswrappers file.
`$CVSREAD`
  If this is set, `checkout` and `update` will try hard to make the files in your working directory read-only. When this is not set, the default behavior is to permit modification of your working files.
`$CVSROOT`
  Should contain the full pathname to the root of the CVS source repository (where the RCS history files are kept). This information must be available to CVS for most commands to execute; if `$CVSROOT` is not set, or if you wish to override it for one invocation, you can supply it on the command line: ``cvs -d cvsroot cvs_command...'` Once you have checked out a working directory, CVS stores the appropriate root (in the file ``CVS/Root'`), so normally you only need to worry about this when initially checking out a working directory.
`$EDITOR`
`$CVSEDITOR`
  Specifies the program to use for recording log messages during commit. If not set, the default is ``/usr/ucb/vi'`. `$CVSEDITOR` overrides `$EDITOR`. `$CVSEDITOR` does not exist in CVS 1.3, but the next release will probably include it.
`$PATH`
  If `$RCSBIN` is not set, and no path is compiled into CVS, it will use `$PATH` to try to find all programs it uses.
`$RCSBIN`
  This is the value CVS is using for where to find RCS binaries. See section Global options, for a description of how to specify this. If not set, a compiled-in value is used, or your `$PATH` is searched.
`$HOME`
`$HOMEPATH`
  Used to locate the directory where the ``.cvsrc'` file is searched (`$HOMEPATH` is used for Windows-NT). see section Default options and the ~/.cvsrc file
`$CVS_RSH`
  Specifies the external program which CVS connects with, when `:ext:` access method is specified. see section Connecting with rsh.
`$CVS_SERVER`
  Used in client-server mode when accessing a remote repository using RSH. It specifies the name of the program to start on the server side when accessing a remote repository using RSH. The default value is `cvs`. see section Connecting with rsh
`$CVS_PASSFILE`
  Used in client-server mode when accessing the `cvs login server`. Default value is ``$HOME/.cvspass'`. see section Using the client with password authentication
`$CVS_PASSWORD`
  Used in client-server mode when accessing the `cvs login server`. see section Using the client with password authentication
`$CVS_CLIENT_PORT`
  Used in client-server mode when accessing the server via Kerberos. see section Direct connection with kerberos
`$CVS_RCMD_PORT`
  Used in client-server mode. If set, specifies the port number to be used when accessing the RCMD demon on the server side. (Currently not used for Unix clients).
`$CVS_CLIENT_LOG`
  Used for debugging only in client-server mode. If set, everything send to the server is logged into ```$CVS_CLIENT_LOG`.in'` and everything send from the server is logged into ```$CVS_CLIENT_LOG`.out'`.
`$CVS_SERVER_SLEEP`
  Used only for debugging the server side in client-server mode. If set, delays the start of the server child process the the specified amount of seconds so that you can attach to it with a debugger.
`$CVS_IGNORE_REMOTE_ROOT`
  (What is the purpose of this variable?)
`$COMSPEC`
  Used under OS/2 only. It specifies the name of the command interpreter and defaults to CMD.EXE.
`$TMPDIR`
`$TMP`
`$TEMP`
  Directory in which temporary files are located. Those parts of CVS which are implemented using RCS inspect the above variables in the order they appear above and the first value found is taken; if none of them are set, a host-dependent default is used, typically ``/tmp'`. The CVS server uses `TMPDIR`. See section Global options, for a description of how to specify this. Some parts of CVS will always use ``/tmp'` (via the `tmpnam` function provided by the system). On Windows NT, `TMP` is used (via the `_tempnam` function provided by the system). The `patch` program which is used by the CVS client uses `TMPDIR`, and if it is not set, uses ``/tmp'` (at least with GNU patch 2.1).

CVS invokes RCS to perform certain operations. The following environment variables affect RCS. Note that if you are using the client/server CVS, these variables need to be set on the server side (which may or not may be possible depending on how you are connecting). There is probably not any need to set any of them, however.

`$LOGNAME`
`$USER`
  If set, they affect who RCS thinks you are. If you have trouble checking in files it might be because your login name differs from the setting of e.g. `$LOGNAME`.
`$RCSINIT`
  Options prepended to the argument list, separated by spaces. A backslash escapes spaces within an option. The `$RCSINIT` options are prepended to the argument lists of most RCS commands.

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