diff --git a/Documentation/git-cvsserver.txt b/Documentation/git-cvsserver.txt
index f2e4a47ebe..4dc57ed254 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-cvsserver.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-cvsserver.txt
@@ -99,7 +99,7 @@ looks like
 
 ------
 
-Only anonymous access is provided by pserve by default. To commit you
+Only anonymous access is provided by pserver by default. To commit you
 will have to create pserver accounts, simply add a gitcvs.authdb
 setting in the config file of the repositories you want the cvsserver
 to allow writes to, for example:
@@ -114,21 +114,20 @@ The format of these files is username followed by the encrypted password,
 for example:
 
 ------
-   myuser:$1Oyx5r9mdGZ2
-   myuser:$1$BA)@$vbnMJMDym7tA32AamXrm./
+   myuser:sqkNi8zPf01HI
+   myuser:$1$9K7FzU28$VfF6EoPYCJEYcVQwATgOP/
+   myuser:$5$.NqmNH1vwfzGpV8B$znZIcumu1tNLATgV2l6e1/mY8RzhUDHMOaVOeL1cxV3
 ------
 You can use the 'htpasswd' facility that comes with Apache to make these
-files, but Apache's MD5 crypt method differs from the one used by most C
-library's crypt() function, so don't use the -m option.
+files, but only with the -d option (or -B if your system suports it).
 
-Alternatively you can produce the password with perl's crypt() operator:
------
-   perl -e 'my ($user, $pass) = @ARGV; printf "%s:%s\n", $user, crypt($user, $pass)' $USER password
------
+Preferably use the system specific utility that manages password hash
+creation in your platform (e.g. mkpasswd in Linux, encrypt in OpenBSD or
+pwhash in NetBSD) and paste it in the right location.
 
 Then provide your password via the pserver method, for example:
 ------
-   cvs -d:pserver:someuser:somepassword <at> server/path/repo.git co <HEAD_name>
+   cvs -d:pserver:someuser:somepassword@server:/path/repo.git co <HEAD_name>
 ------
 No special setup is needed for SSH access, other than having Git tools
 in the PATH. If you have clients that do not accept the CVS_SERVER
@@ -138,7 +137,7 @@ Note: Newer CVS versions (>= 1.12.11) also support specifying
 CVS_SERVER directly in CVSROOT like
 
 ------
-cvs -d ":ext;CVS_SERVER=git cvsserver:user@server/path/repo.git" co <HEAD_name>
+   cvs -d ":ext;CVS_SERVER=git cvsserver:user@server/path/repo.git" co <HEAD_name>
 ------
 This has the advantage that it will be saved in your 'CVS/Root' files and
 you don't need to worry about always setting the correct environment
@@ -186,8 +185,8 @@ allowing access over SSH.
 +
 --
 ------
-     export CVSROOT=:ext:user@server:/var/git/project.git
-     export CVS_SERVER="git cvsserver"
+   export CVSROOT=:ext:user@server:/var/git/project.git
+   export CVS_SERVER="git cvsserver"
 ------
 --
 4. For SSH clients that will make commits, make sure their server-side
@@ -203,7 +202,7 @@ allowing access over SSH.
    `project-master` directory:
 +
 ------
-     cvs co -d project-master master
+   cvs co -d project-master master
 ------
 
 [[dbbackend]]
diff --git a/git-cvsserver.perl b/git-cvsserver.perl
index ed035f32c2..64319bed43 100755
--- a/git-cvsserver.perl
+++ b/git-cvsserver.perl
@@ -222,10 +222,11 @@ if ($state->{method} eq 'pserver') {
         open my $passwd, "<", $authdb or die $!;
         while (<$passwd>) {
             if (m{^\Q$user\E:(.*)}) {
-                if (crypt($user, descramble($password)) eq $1) {
+                my $hash = crypt(descramble($password), $1);
+                if (defined $hash and $hash eq $1) {
                     $auth_ok = 1;
                 }
-            };
+            }
         }
         close $passwd;
 
diff --git a/t/t9400-git-cvsserver-server.sh b/t/t9400-git-cvsserver-server.sh
index 2d29d486ee..17f988edd2 100755
--- a/t/t9400-git-cvsserver-server.sh
+++ b/t/t9400-git-cvsserver-server.sh
@@ -36,6 +36,13 @@ CVSWORK="$PWD/cvswork"
 CVS_SERVER=git-cvsserver
 export CVSROOT CVS_SERVER
 
+if perl -e 'exit(1) if not defined crypt("", "cv")'
+then
+	PWDHASH='lac2ItudM3.KM'
+else
+	PWDHASH='$2b$10$t8fGvE/a9eLmfOLzsZme2uOa2QtoMYwIxq9wZA6aBKtF1Yb7FJIzi'
+fi
+
 rm -rf "$CVSWORK" "$SERVERDIR"
 test_expect_success 'setup' '
   git config push.default matching &&
@@ -54,7 +61,7 @@ test_expect_success 'setup' '
   GIT_DIR="$SERVERDIR" git config --bool gitcvs.enabled true &&
   GIT_DIR="$SERVERDIR" git config gitcvs.logfile "$SERVERDIR/gitcvs.log" &&
   GIT_DIR="$SERVERDIR" git config gitcvs.authdb "$SERVERDIR/auth.db" &&
-  echo cvsuser:cvGVEarMLnhlA > "$SERVERDIR/auth.db"
+  echo "cvsuser:$PWDHASH" >"$SERVERDIR/auth.db"
 '
 
 # note that cvs doesn't accept absolute pathnames