Re: Problems with the :server: access

[Mark D. Baushke]

Reinstein, Shlomo <address@hidden> writes:

> We are using the :server: access method to access our CVS repository. Trying
> to check-out a module, one of my users got the following message:
>       warning: unrecognized response `text' from cvs server 
> (where 'text' is some arbitrary string.)
> 
> I figured out that 'text' was actually printed from the ~/.cshrc file on the
> server. The ~/.cshrc file of the user printed a few things to the standard
> output (e.g., "echo $PATH" or printing some special characters that change
> the title of the xterm window) and these things got back to the CVS client
> as an "unregcognized response from cvs server". Most of these things ended
> in a warning message like the above but some of them also caused erroneous
> conflicts to occur.
> 
> What is wrong here, and what can the user do to fix it? Is it a server
> configuration problem (is the .cshrc restricted not to print on stdout) or a
> client configuration problem?
> 
> Thanks,
> Shlomo

The :server: protocol needs to be clean without any unexpected text from
the initial rsh or ssh connection. The user needs to make sure that
non-interactive shell use does not generate messages on stdout or stderr.

If we assume that the command that is generating this output is
primarily intended for interactive users and is the command

        echo foo

somewhere in the users ~/.cshrc script, then either that text should be
moved to the ~/.login file where it is done once on interactive login or
it should be protected for non-interactive use by checking to see if the
prompt has been set:

if ($?prompt) then
  # commands useful interactive use of this shell go inside of this block
  echo foo
endif

        Enjoy!
        -- Mark