CVS is a version control system for source code. We don't care whether or not you actually use it to control your site-local modifications. However, even if you don't, it's still important you put your modifications under a directory in $LJHOME/cvs.

At this point, you already have a directory named cvs underneath your $LJHOME directory. Further, that directory already has under it a directory called livejournal, which holds the ‘general’ files.

What you want to do now is make a directory that holds the ‘local’ files. The LiveJournal tools look for your files in a directory beside livejournal named local, but local can actually be a symlink to your real directory. ^[5]