Redmine

Redmine will only update the SCM history if you visit repository page, probably so as not to have unneeded overhead on other pages.

I have worked around this by adding a post-commit hook to our svn repositories, see #3667. I've never worked with CVS, so I'm not sure if CVS has hooks of any kind, but maybe that will help you get on the way.

Felix, thanks for the hint. I use the fetch script in a cron job now to update the changesets every 10 minutes.

Well, the cron-job is as you say every 10 minutes, and is a polling approach, i.e. you ask each and every repo every 10 minutes if there is something new, in this case loading the whole ruby stuff and everything to get this going. While a convenient solution, it will add more load as the number of repositories grows, and it doesn't happen "in real time". The post-commit hook solution is a pushing approach, meaning that a repository which gets updated tells redmine that it has changed. While adding a small overhead per commit (I didn't notice commits to be slower, but your mileage may vary), it only updates redmine as needed, so say a repository which sits idle for a week won't cause any extra and unnecessary work, the cron solution will cause roughly 1000 accesses (6 accesses/hour * 24 hours/day * 7 days/week) to the repo for "nothing".

It might not make that much difference in the end, especially compared to having a database and rails and a webserver running, but hey, I'm a CS student, and I'm being taught to take any work-cheap workflow-optimizing improvements that crosses my way ;-)