Spackle Man Page

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SPACKLE

Section: Utilities (5)

Updated: November 2001

NAME

Spackle - CVS Access Controls and Utilities

DESCRIPTION

Spackle is a collection of files and scripts which are installed in a CVS repository's CVSROOT module. It takes advantage of many of the hooks the base CVS software provides and enhances it to allow finer-grained access control and/or augmented logging capabilities.

Spackle is applied to an existing CVS repository; more precisely, to the checked-out CVSROOT module, and the added and changed files are then committed. The features are selected using a standard ./configure command, and applied with an equally standard make install.

The logging features added by Spackle are triggered by commits to the repository, and are twofold:

A mail message describing the changes, in the form of diff output, is sent to the appropriate addresses. This message includes the log message specified by the committer, and the entire message is suitable for application with the patch utility.
The contents of the mail message are also appended to a file in the CVSROOT directory, so a complete history of the changes that have been made can be easily reviewed.

The email addresses to which the commit reports are sent are entirely customisable, and may be different for different modules -- or even different files -- in the repository.

The security features added by Spackle consist of allowing the control of commit access at any degree of granularity. Individual users may be granted (or denied) access to specific modules or files.

SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS

Three files are of particular concern when it comes to security. Those are the CVSROOT/passwd, CVSROOT/readers, and CVSROOT/writers files. These are considered sensitive because they contain information about what levels of access are permitted to different users; in addition, the CVSROOT/passwd file contains encrypted passwords.

By default, Spackle will neither create nor export these files. However, each can be individually enabled at configuration time, which will make their contents available to anyone accessing the CVSROOT module.

If you have direct access to your repository -- i.e., it's on a local system and you don't need to go through the network to modify the CVSROOT files -- it is highly recommended that you maintain these files directly in the repository and neither check them into the CVSROOT module nor list them as exportable in the CVSROOT/checkoutlist file.