Getting Netbeans To Talk To Sourceforge

Introduction

This is a quick guide to mounting a sourceforge cvs project within Netbeans under Windows XP (although this will almost certainly work the same way on 98,2000). Sourceforge only allows connections to the cvs projects held within it via ssh. At the time of writing this Netbeans(3.4b2) does not natively support ssh for cvs file systems.

Sourceforge ssh Connection

The first step is to establish an ssh link to sourceforge that doesn't require userid/password entry.
1. Get a set of the excellent putty tools.
2. Follow the instructions under WinCVS CVS Client Installation Instructions . You should only have to perform the following steps :

• Install Putty SSH suite
• Generate an SSH key pair
• Upload an SSH key pair
• Configure Pagent(a component of Putty)
• Test your automated authentication

i.e. perform a test as follows :-

plink userid@cvs.yourprojectname.sourceforge.net
This will prompt you to add cvs.yourprojectname.sourceforge.net to the list of servers putty knows about.

i.e. For my sourceforge hosted module for checkstyle under Netbeans I perform
plink goul@cvs.nbcheckstyle.sourceforge.net

Note: If you are having problems with either of the two last steps, then adding -v to the plink arguments gives you a lot of information about what is being performed.
I found this a really good way of telling if my SSH key had really been uploaded to sourceforge or if my configuration was broken.

Netbeans Configuration

At this point in time you should be able to directly connect to sourceforge via plink without having to enter a password. The next step is to download a current copy of the commandline version of cvs see http://www.cvshome.org/.

The next step is mount the project within Netbeans. Ensure that pagent is running, the follow these steps :-

• In the filesystems tab select "Mount->Version Control->CVS"
• Enter the working directory you would like to work in.
• Set the relative mount point you want.
• Select "External" as the connection method.
• Set the CVS_RSH field to the location of where you installed plink. e.g. c:\putty\plink.exe
• Set the server name to cvs.yourprojectname.sourceforge.net. NB. make sure you use your project name not just cvs.sourceforge.net.
• Set the username to be who you login as.
• Set the repository to be /cvsroot/yourprojectname.
• Hit next and then show the path to the commandline version of cvs in the cvs executable field.
• Hit finish - import the module you want for the project.

Its done! You ought to be able to be able to perform operations such as cvs commit etc directly on the filesystem.

Comments corrections etc. Let me know