CVS filling /tmp (was Re: FreeBSD CVS Question (answered!))

[Robert Watson]

On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Stijn Hoop wrote:

> On Tue, Jan 13, 2004 at 08:30:32PM -0500, Garance A Drosihn wrote:
> > The problem is how CVS itself works
> > with a remote repository.  If you're on machine A, and the
> > repository is on machine B, then CVS will build a lot of
> > information in /tmp on machine B when machine 'A' does a
> > cvs-checkout of the entire tree.  The issue is the same if
> > you do that over 'rsh' instead of 'ssh'.  I do not mind the
> > overhead from encrypting the connection.
> 
> I have seen this too, and sometimes this has prevented me from checking
> out RELENG_4 or some such from a machine with a swap backed /tmp. Is
> there *any* workaround other than using cvsup? Is there a logical
> explanation for this or is it just an unfixed bug in CVS? 

While I'm not quite sure of the rhyme or reason, what's occuring is that
CVS is creating a mirror directory layout of the subtree you're operating
on in /tmp.  This means you'll actually likely run out of inodes before
space, FWIW.  I usually set TMPDIR to point it at /usr/tmp to avoid this
being a problem.

Robert N M Watson             FreeBSD Core Team, TrustedBSD Projects
robert at fledge.watson.org      Senior Research Scientist, McAfee Research