managing cvs from php

Hi, I use cvs from my internal projects and will soon need to let others change template files from a web form. The user will load the current template, edit, preview and if ok "publish". Since I'd like to keep a history and track those changes one option for me would be to add a cvs call with a commit off the changed file. I do not need to do other "fancy" functions. Just commit and get the result if it worked. My current (not working) test script is simply $cmd = "cd ".$pathToFile." ; /usr/bin/cvs ci -m '".$logMsg."' ".$file ; passthru($cmd) ; If I echo the $cmd and paste in a shell the command works. When I execute from web nothing happens and no output is seen (error_reporting(E_ALL))