CVS supports the concept of multiple users. These users are allowed to commit and checkout files in all directories in the repository. The ability read and write access for each user in the repository is a built-in capability of CVS and is controlled by the files. CVSROOT/readers and CVSROOT/writers files.

CVS does not have the capability to restrict commits by users at the directory/sub-directory level in a repository. There is a need by more than one user of CVS for fine grained access control in CVS at the directory/sub-directory level. Thus was born the CVSPermissions toolkit.