More on CVS Auto-update, TCP tracing

In my post few days ago I discussed automatic working copy updating with CVS on Windows. Since then I’ve slightly fine-tuned the process. For one, I added a “-C” switch to the update (in case someone messes with the online files they will be clobbered on next update). I’m also undecided with “-P” to prune empty directories, and not quite certain about how it behaves with “-d” to create unexisting directories to the working copy.

Currently my automated update line in cvsuatoupdatebe.pl looks like this:

@args = ("c:/Program Files/CVSNT/cvs.exe", "update", "-C", "-d");

On an unrelated note… few days ago I had to capture a SMTP session between a CF script and a SMTP server. While there may be other (easier? :)) ways to do it, I came across a great open source application, Ethereal: A Network Protocol Analyzer. It has a handy “Follow TCP Stream” feature which reconstructs the conversation on a specific TCP thread. Additionally you can filter by IP, by port, etc. I configured it to record port 25 activity (this is on the client), started capture, ran the script, stopped capture, chose the target IP from the list, and selected “Follow TCP Stream” and in an instant had the SMTP session I was looking for.