I work on local copies of files and upload them to a remote server on save. What version control system can I use?

Question

Here's my situation:

• My files are on a remote server (Linux).
• When I want to edit a file at home on my Windows machine, my editor (PSPad) downloads a copy.
• When I save the document, my editor uploads it to the server, overwriting the previous version.

Edit: Just to be clear, I don't have a local copy of my complete project — I just have a temporary local copy of a single file when I edit it. I don't think TortoiseCVS works with that?

Is there a version control system, preferably GUI driven, that can handle this situation?

Additional info:

• I probably can't install elaborate software on the remote server, but can on my own computer.
• Concurrent Versions System (CVS) is installed on the remote server.
• Uploading/downloading goes through an FTP-to-SFTP bridge set up with Bitvise Tunnelier.

Answer 1

Well if you are looking for a CVS client with GUI, you could try TortoiseCVS.

Answer 2

Why can't you use a CVS client on your local machine?

Answer 3

You can use any system you want if youre going to use a local repository. It depends on which on you prefer. If you are going to use CVS then you could use the remote machine to serve the repository.

Either way youll want to change your process. Youll need to checkout a copy of your project form the repository then cork on it and commit changes. Then you would push the changed files out to the server youre hosting them on.

As far as recommendations id have to say if youre new to version control SVN or Git would probably be the best choices as they seem to be the most popular (i use SVN myself).

Answer 4

I would recommend SVN over CVS, but don't confuse versioning system with publishing. Publishing is not a feature of neither. Versioning systems are databases, repositories that keep track of your files modifications. SVN for example has hooks and you can attach scripts that will make an export or update files in your virtual hosts, but this is not easy to set up.

In your case, install and use a versioning system, whatever and you'll understand the benefits. I would keep a local copy of everything in the server connected to this versioning system and use the ftp upload to publish. This was my standard working environment for years of solo development.