The init Command

The init command creates a new CVS repository. You should use the –d global option to specify the absolute path of the repository. This ensures that the existing repositories are not affected by this command. For example, to create a new repository, new_repository, at a specified location, the command is:

$ cvs –d /usr/local/new_repository init

To set up a CVS repository, you must define the environment variable CVSROOT to point to the repository directory.

A good choice may be (C-shell example)

setenv CVSROOT /usr/local/src/cvsroot

Once $CVSROOT is defined then you can do

cvs init

to initialize and set-up the CVS repository. This only needs to be done once.