Using version control - IntelliJ IDEA in Action - page 263

required (however, an external CVS client must be installed); in every other case,
the method refers to a remote repository, and you need to specify the host, port
(if not the default CVS port), and username in order to connect. If you know the
CVS Root for your repository, you may enter it directly in the field provided. Click
the Edit by Field button to enter the various component parts of the CVS Root
individually. IDEA will build the CVS Root for you.
To check out a specific branch of the tree, you may specify it in the entry. Oth-
erwise, select the HEAD revision option to check out the latest version. The ver-
sion information is stored in the repository reference, allowing you to define
multiple references of the same repository with different revisions. Details on
how IDEA handles branching and concurrent versions will be presented later in
this chapter.
Depending on the type of authentication used by your CVS repository, you'll
have several different possible sets of security options. For example, if you're using
the pserver style of authentication (as shown in the example in figure 8.2), you're
asked to enter your password when you first attempt to connect to the server. The
option Password file specifies the path to the file in which IDEA stores a copy of
the password you use to access the CVS server. By caching a copy of your password
(it's stored in an encrypted format), IDEA avoids having to ask you to enter it each
time you access files under source code control. This authentication mechanism is
somewhat simplistic, however, so most companies are moving away from it in favor
of the secure shell protocol ( SSH ). This is common when working across the Inter-
net, because the normal CVS communications mechanism is unencrypted.
Testing your configuration settings
When you think your CVS Root is configured properly, click the Test Connection
button in the CVS Roots window to be sure. IDEA will attempt to connect to the
currently selected CVS repository using the configuration and authentication set-
tings you've specified and verify that it's able to communicate successfully with
the server. If it can't, it will try to give you an idea of what the problem is, be it a
bad password or invalid server name. You should always verify your settings
before wrapping up your CVS configuration.
Configuring global properties
You can tweak additional CVS settings by clicking the Global Settings button in
the Ve r s i o n C o n t r o l panel to open the dialog shown in figure 8.3. In addition to
letting you enter the location for storing your password and the connection time-
out, it provides two additional important options. The first option, Use UTF-8