Visual SourceSafe 2005 Software Configuration Management in Practice

Table of Contents

Visual SourceSafe 2005 Software Configuration Management in Practice

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewers

Preface

What This Book Covers

What You Need for This Book

Who This Book is For

Conventions

Reader Feedback

Customer Support

Downloading the Example Code for the Book

Errata

Questions

1. Controlling the Evolution of Software Products

What is Software Configuration Management?

The Software Development Lifecycle

Software Configuration Management Concepts

Resource Management

The Repository

Workspaces

Resource Versioning

Revisions

Deltas

Cooperation Support

Check Out

Modify/Edit

Check In

Merge

Commit/Submit

Undo Check Out

Cooperation Models

Check Out-Modify-Check In

Modify-Merge-Commit

History Management

Labels

Using Labels

Build and Release Management

Parallel Development

Codelines

Branches

Merging Branches

Conclusion

Summary

2. The SourceSafe 2005 Architecture

The Visual SourceSafe Server

The Visual SourceSafe Administrator Application

The LAN Booster Service

The XML Web Service

The Visual SourceSafe Database

Data Folder

Temp Folder

Users Folder

VssWebDownload Folder

VssWebUpload Folder

Srcsafe.ini File

Users.txt File

The Visual SourceSafe Clients

Visual SourceSafe Explorer

Visual SourceSafe Command-Line Utility

The SourceSafe Integration with Visual Studio .NET

Plug-In Selection in Visual Studio .NET

Accessing the Source Control Commands

Network Configurations

Accessing the Server using the LAN Connection

Accessing the Server through a Virtual Private Network

Accessing SourceSafe through HTTP/HTTPS

Summary

3. Creating a Service-Oriented Application

Specifications—Project Architecture

System Requirements

Application Architectures

Compact Application Architecture

Component Application Architecture

Data Access Layer

Business Layer

Presentation Layer

Characteristics

Service-Oriented Architecture

XML Web Services

Choosing an Application Architecture

Choosing an Application Platform

Microsoft .NET Framework

Designing the System

System Structure

Database Structure

Visual Studio .NET Projects and Solutions

Visual Studio .NET Projects

Non-Web Projects

Web Projects

Visual Studio .NET Solutions

Partitioning Solutions and Projects

Single Solution

Partitioned Solution

Multi-Solution

Best Practices for the Solution Physical Structure

Hierarchical Folder Structure

Creating Web Projects

Using the File System

Using Local IIS

File System versus Local IIS

Creating the Orbital Hotel Solution

Summary

4. Adding Solutions to the SourceSafe Database

Setting up the Database

Connecting to the Database

Adding the Database to the Database List

Adding the Database over the LAN

Using Visual SourceSafe Explorer

Using Visual Studio with the LAN Plug-In

Adding the Database over the Internet

Opening the Database

Using Visual SourceSafe Explorer

Using Visual Studio with the LAN Plug-In

Using Visual Studio with the Internet Plug-In

Adding the Solution to the Database using Visual Studio

Files Subjected to Source Control

Visual Studio with the LAN Plug-In

Visual Studio with the Internet Plug-In

What Happens after Adding the Solution to the Database

How SourceSafe Represents the Solution—the Data Model

Projects, Subprojects, and Files

Summary

5. Developing Solutions under Source Control

Setting up the Workspace

Workspace Mappings

Getting Solutions from the Database

Using Visual Studio with the LAN Plug-In

Using Visual Studio with the Internet Plug-In

Adding New Project Files

Creating the Room Management Classes for Orbital Hotel

Designing the Classes using the Class Diagram

Checking In to the Database

Versions and History

File Versions and History

Project Versions and History

Getting the Latest Versions

Team Cooperation

Choosing a Check-Out Model

The Exclusive Check-Out Model

Refreshing a File's Source Control Status

Checking In the Changes

Comparing Versions

Comparing File Versions

Comparing Project Versions

Undoing Version Changes

Getting Older Versions

Rolling Back Changes

The Multiple Check-Out Model

Merging Changes

Merge on Check In

Merge then Check In

Merge by Getting the Latest Version

Merge Conflicts

Resolving Merge Conflicts

Pinning Files

Searching for Files in the Database

Wildcard Search

Status Search

Canceling the Search Mode

Sharing Files

Using Visual Studio with the LAN Plug-In

Using Visual Studio with the Internet Plug-In

Using Visual SourceSafe Explorer

Moving Projects and Files

Moving Files

Moving Projects

Rebinding to the Database

Deleting, Recovering, and Purging Files

Summary

6. Working from Remote Locations

Working Online

Using the Native HTTP(S) Access

Connecting to the Database

Differences from the LAN Plug-In

Using Virtual Private Network (VPN) Access

Third-Party Solutions

Working Offline

Loosing the LAN Connection to the Database

Starting Work Offline with the LAN Plug-In

Loosing the Internet Connection to the Database

Starting Work Offline with the Internet Plug-In

The Disconnected Mode

Reconnecting to the Database

Using the LAN Plug-In

Only Allow Checkouts of the Latest Version Option Enabled

No New Revision

File is not Checked Out

File is Checked Out

Allow Multiple Checkouts Option Disabled

Allow Multiple Checkouts Option Enabled

New Revisions

File is Not Checked Out

File is Checked Out

Handling Data Loss Situations

Only Allow Checkouts of the Latest Version Option Disabled

File is Not Checked Out

File is Checked Out

Allow Multiple Checkouts Option Disabled

Allow Multiple Checkouts Option Enabled

Using the Internet Plug-In

File is Not Checked Out

File is Checked Out

Allow Multiple Checkouts Option Disabled

Allow Multiple Checkouts Option Enabled

Summary

7. Managing the Software Development Lifecycle

The Evolution of Software Products

Milestones

Using Labels to Manage Milestones

Creating Labels

Viewing Project Labels

Viewing File Labels

Editing Labels

Deleting Labels

Recreating Product Configurations

Creating Persistent Configuration Snapshots

Sharing and Pinning Configurations

Building

Build Engines

Testing

Code Analysis

Unit Testing

Code Coverage

Releasing

Parallel Product Development

Codelines

Maintaining Multiple Product Versions

Creating Maintenance Lines

Share, Pin, and Branch

Branching the Maintenance Line on Creation

Branching the Maintenance Line after Share and Pin

Using the Maintenance Line

Integrating Codelines

Merging Branches

Viewing the Differences between Codelines

Merging Files

Resolving Merge Conflicts

Summary

A. Installing Visual SourceSafe 2005

SourceSafe Installation

Server Configuration

Client Configuration

Finishing the Installation

Configuring SourceSafe for Remote Access

Using HTTP

Using HTTPS

Setting up a Server Certificate using SelfSSL

Installing the Certificate on the Clients

Setting up a Server Certificate using Certificate Services

Requesting the Certificate

Issuing the Server Certificate

Installing the Certificate on the Server

Assigning the SSL Certificate to the Website

Distributing the Server's Certificate to Users

Summary

B. Creating and Configuring SourceSafe Databases

Creating Databases

Securing the Database

The SourceSafe Admin User

Setting the Windows Security for the Database

Creating the Windows Groups for the Database Users

Setting the Security Permissions for the Database

Setting the Time Zone

Sharing the Database

Managing the Database Users

Adding Users

Setting Shadow Folders for Read-Only Users

Changing the User Name

Changing the User Password

Allowing Automatic User Logins

Setting Project Rights for Users

Auditing User Actions with Journal Files

Deleting Users

Configuring the Services for Visual Studio

Configuring the Local Area Network Service

Configuring the Remote Internet Access Service

Summary

C. Database Maintenance

Undoing User Checkouts

Changing the Team Version Control Model

Locking the Database

Archiving the Database

Restoring the Database

Analyzing the SourceSafe Database

Summary

Index

Visual SourceSafe 2005 Software Configuration Management in Practice

Alexandru Serban

Visual SourceSafe 2005 Software Configuration Management in Practice

Copyright © 2007 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, Packt Publishing, nor its dealers or distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: February 2007

Production Reference: 1090207

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd. 32 Lincoln Road Olton Birmingham, B27 6PA, UK.

ISBN 978-1-904811-69-5

www.packtpub.com

Cover Image by www.visionwt.com

Credits

Author

Alexandru Serban

Reviewers

Alin Constantin

Dragos Brezoi

Jean-Baptiste Lab

Development Editor

Cristian Darie

Technical Editor

Saurabh Singh

Editorial Manager

Dipali Chittar

Project Manager

Patricia Weir

Project Coordinator

Abhijeet Deobhakta

Indexer

Bhushan Pangaonkar

Proofreader

Chris Smith

Layouts and Illustrations

Shantanu Zagade

Cover Designer

Shantanu Zagade

About the Author

Alexandru Serban is the founder and CEO of Unievo, a new software development company.

Previously, he worked as a .NET Software Architect with Softwin and Microsoft on extending Visual Studio for enterprise infrastructure projects. In 2004, he co-authored Pro .NET 1.1 Network Programming, Second Edition.

Alexandru has been driven by the computer revolution ever since he can remember. Now he plans to be a part of it.

When not planning to take over the word, he likes to drive and travel, in the summer to the sea and in the winter to the mountains, where he hits the slopes with his snowboard.

About the Reviewers

Alin Constantin graduated from the Faculty of Automatic Control and Computers of the Politehnica University of Bucharest in 1997. He worked at Crinsoft S.R.L., developing hotel management and user interface automation software. Then in 1999 he joined Microsoft. For almost 7 years he focused on developing Visual SourceSafe and source control integration in Visual Studio.

Dragos Brezoi started programming to create an application for processing and adding extra effects to his guitar's sound. Several years later, he got a Masters Degree in Computer Science from the Politehnica University of Bucharest, and is now researching for a Ph.D. in Advanced Automatics. Dragos worked for several years in the industrial automation field as a programmer for PLC and DSP programming to SCADA, OPC, and DCS solutions. Dragos co-authored GDI+ Custom Controls with Visual C# 2005 (Packt Publishing, 2006), and he currently works for Motorola TTPCom Product Group (Denmark), developing a next-generation embedded software framework.

Jean-Baptiste Lab discovered computers at the age of 12, when he started writing demos in assembly to impress his friends. After a scientific-oriented basic education, he obtained a B.Sc. in Computer Science at Portsmouth University, UK in 1998, and went on to achieve an M.Sc. in Mathematics and Computing at the University of Besancon, France. Expatriated in Denmark, Jean-Baptiste has been working in the mobile phone industry since 2001, touching various fields spanning from GSM Protocol Stack simulation to software architecture, build systems, and configuration management.

Preface

Software Configuration Management (SCM) is one of the first skills a serious developer should master, after becoming proficient with his or her development tools of choice. Unfortunately this doesn't always happen because the subject of SCM is not commonly taught in academic or company training.

Although software is not a material thing, as you cannot touch it, smell it, or taste it, building software can be as complex as building physical things such as cars or planes, if not more so. The main difference between the two worlds lies in the limitations you confront. In the world of developing software there are no physical limitations—the only limit is your imagination.

However, all this freedom can have a downside. A good TV commercial once stated Power is nothing without control—if you do not control it wisely, it may start working against you. When developing software, you need to have a manageable team development effort, track and maintain the history of your projects, sustain parallel development on multiple product versions, fix bugs, and release service packs while further developing the applications.

This is where the concept of Software Configuration Management (SCM) comes into play, dealing among other things with source code versioning, tracking development evolution, building, and releasing. Putting it in simple terms, SCM is about getting the job done safer, faster, and better.

While trying to keep the theory to a minimum, this book starts by teaching you what SCM is, why it is important, and what benefits you get by using it, either by working individually or by being part of a team. You will find this part very valuable if you're new to the concept of SCM, because you will be setting your base for understanding what happens in the rest of the book.

Then the book concentrates on the Microsoft Visual SourceSafe 2005 SCM tool and the best practices used to manage the development and evolution of Visual Studio .NET 2005 applications. You will learn the theory by going through a journey, in which we will actually develop a new application, starting from designing its specifications and ending with releasing it and completing the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC).

You will learn how the SCM concepts are applied by Visual SourceSafe 2005 by developing Orbital Hotel, a Service-Oriented Application hotel reservation system. You will learn how to use the team cooperation features in Visual SourceSafe 2005 with the help of John and Mary, two fictional team members who have been assigned to implement various project components.

The end of the book deals with SourceSafe administration tasks. It describes SourceSafe database creation, management, and maintenance, how to secure the database, how to create users and assign user rights, and how to manage projects and project settings.

Additional material on how to customize SourceSafe to suit your development style is available at http://www.packtpub.com/visual-sourcesafe-2005/book. You can visit Orbital Hotel online at http://orbitalhotel.alexandruserban.com/.

I hope you will find this book a great resource about Visual SourceSafe 2005, and I hope you will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

What This Book Covers

Chapter 1 teaches you the basic terminology and concepts used in the SCM world, and how SCM integrates in the Software Development Lifecycle.

Chapter 2 introduces you to Microsoft's SCM tool for small and medium teams: Visual SourceSafe 2005. You'll learn what this product is made of, and what new features and improvements it has over the previous versions.

Chapter 3 introduces Orbital Hotel, a hotel-reservation system application, which will be used in the next chapters as a case study for developing Visual Studio applications with SourceSafe. We will see what the best structure for Visual Studio solutions is when working under Source Control.

Chapter 4 discusses the various ways you can add a software project to the SourceSafe database. This is the first step you'll take when starting to develop an application under Source Control.

Chapter 5 covers the Source Control operations used daily in our development activities. We'll set up a new workspace and get the solution from the SourceSafe database. Then, we will add new files to the solution, check them in, examine their history, and get latest versions. We will also explore the team-cooperation models and see what are the differences between them, their advantages and disadvantages, and operations such as item comparison, undoing changes, file merging and pinning, and conflict resolution.

Chapter 6 teaches you how to access the SourceSafe server through the intranet or the Internet, in order to perform the necessary Source Control tasks. If you don't have an internet connection at the remote location, or if the local SourceSafe server is temporarily down, you can work offline, provided you already have the solution files on your remote machine. When a connection to the database becomes available again, you reconnect to the SourceSafe database and synchronize the changes. Depending on the database configuration and the Visual Studio plug-ins you use while reconnecting, there are some scenarios to consider for avoiding data loss. We will examine the possible scenarios that can lead to data loss and see how to avoid such situations.

Chapter 7 teaches you how to manage the software development lifecycle using SourceSafe. In the evolution of software products there are many milestones. We will see how to manage them using SourceSafe so that we can reproduce their specific configurations when needed. We will also talk about the build process and how a periodical build can catch integration problems early on. We will take a brief look at white-box and black-box tests and how they help in ensuring final product quality. Last but not the least, we will see how to maintain multiple product versions to be able to release service packs while continuing development towards the next versions.

Appendix A covers the installation steps for Visual SourceSafe 2005 and the configuration for remote access.

Appendix B describes how to perform SourceSafe database administration tasks such as creating and securing databases, managing database and Windows users, creating shadow folders, and configuring the services for the SourceSafe plug-ins in Visual Studio.

Appendix C discusses how to perform maintenance tasks on SourceSafe databases such as undoing user checkouts, changing the team version control model, locking, archiving, restoring, and running database maintenance tools.

Note

Additional material on Customizing Visual SourceSafe 2005 is available at http://www.packtpub.com/sourcesafe/book.

What You Need for This Book

To follow this book you need Visual SourceSafe 2005, and Visual Studio .NET 2005 Standard edition or above.

Who This Book is For

This book is for .NET developers, testers, and configuration managers who:

Use Visual Studio .NET 2005 for building software

Want to use software configuration to manage their products in day-to-day activities

Want to improve their efficiency by learning to use the best practices with SourceSafe

Want to install, manage, and configure Visual SourceSafe 2005 for optimal operation

The book doesn't assume previous experience with any software configuration tool and is a great resource for people who want to start learning about this subject.

Conventions

In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.

There are three styles for code. Code words in text are shown as follows: In the third page we have to specify the LAN network path to the database shared folder that contains the srcsafe.ini file.

A block of code will be set as follows:

///

/// Updates the room database with the information in the room

/// parameter

///

/// rooms>The RoomDataTable object containing

/// the information to be updated

public void UpdateRooms(RoomDS.RoomDataTable rooms)

{

throw new System.NotImplementedException();

}

Any command-line input and output is written as follows:

selfssl.exe /N:CN=vss.alexandruserban.com /T /V:365

New terms and important words are introduced in a bold-type font. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in our text like this: The path can be entered manually or by using the Browse button to browse the network for the specific path.

Note

Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Tip

Tips and tricks appear like this.

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Customer Support

Now that you are the proud owner of a Packt book, we have a number of things to help you to get the most from your purchase.

Downloading the Example Code for the Book

Visit http://www.packtpub.com/support, and select this book from the list of titles to download any example code or extra resources for this book. The files available for download will then be displayed.

The downloadable files contain instructions on how to use them.

Errata

Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of our contents, mistakes do happen. If you find a mistake in one of our books—maybe a mistake in text or code—we would be grateful if you would report this to us. By doing this you can save other readers from frustration, and help to improve subsequent versions of this book. If you find any errata, report them by visiting http://www.packtpub.com/support, selecting your book, clicking on the Submit Errata link, and entering the details of your errata. Once your errata are verified, your submission will be accepted and the errata are added to the list of existing errata. The existing errata can be viewed by selecting your title from http://www.packtpub.com/support.

Questions

You can contact us at <questions@packtpub.com> if you are having a problem with some aspect of the book, and we will do our best to address it.

Chapter 1. Controlling the Evolution of Software Products

On April 30, 1999, a Titan IV B rocket carrying a military satellite into orbit was launched from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Station, Florida. The flight performance of the Titan solid rocket motor and the core vehicle was nominal. However, the vehicle began experiencing instability about the roll axis during the first burn. This instability was greatly magnified during the upper stage second main engine burn, resulting in uncontrolled vehicle tumbling. As a result of these anomalous events the satellite was placed in an unusable low elliptical final orbit instead of an