Breakdown of a typical CVS command

The following is a typical checkout command for retrieving a copy of Drupal from CVS:

Here is how this line breaks down:

cvs

Invokes the cvs command

-z6

Tells cvs to use compression when transferring the files. This can be from -z1 to -z9 with -z9 being the most compressed. The higher the number, the harder it is on the drupal.org servers, so try to stay at or around the -z6 range and you'll be fine.

-d:pserver:anonymous:anonymous@cvs.drupal.org:/cvs/drupal

Tells cvs:

• Which type of authentication to use (pserver = password authenticating server)
• The username to log in with (anonymous)
• The password to log in with (anonymous)
• The server where the CVS repository is located (cvs.drupal.org)
• The location on the server where the CVS repository is located (/cvs/drupal)

checkout

The CVS command to execute; other examples are update or diff.

-d drupal5

The directory where you want cvs to put your files once it checks them out, regardless of the directory name used in the cvs repository itself.

-r DRUPAL-5

This option tells cvs what revision to use (in this case, we are telling to get files from the Drupal 5 branch).

drupal

The directory from the cvs repository you want.