Checkouts/updates exit with error saying cannot expand modules

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Checkouts/updates exit with error saying cannot expand modules

This is just a case of a bad error message in CVS; probably someone will get around to fixing it sooner or later, but meanwhile it may bite you. The error message looks something like this:

     floss$ cvs co -d bwf-misc user-space/bwf/writings/misc
     cvs server: cannot find module `user-space/bwf/writings/misc' - ignored
     cvs [checkout aborted]: cannot expand modules

CVS appears to be saying that there's something wrong with the CVSROOT/modules file. However, what's really going on is a permission problem in the repository. The directory I'm trying to check out isn't readable, or one of its parents isn't readable. In this case, it was a parent:

     floss$ ls -ld /usr/local/cvs/user-space/bwf
     
     drwx------  19 bwf      users        1024 Aug 17 01:24 bwf/

Don't let that egregiously wrong error message fool you – this is a repository permission problem.

Karl Fogel wrote this book. Buy a printed copy via his homepage at red-bean.com