The program rcs(1) does the work or creating archives and modifying their attributes. A summary of rcs(1) options may be found in the rcs(1) manual page.
The easiest way to create an archive is first to mkdir RCS in the current directory, then initialize the archive with the
rcs -i name_of_work_filecommand. This creates and archive with the name
./RCS/name_of_work_file,v and requests a text message describing the archive, but it does not deposit any revisions in the archive. You can turn on or off strict archive locking with the commands
rcs -L name_of_work_fileand
rcs -U name_of_work_filerespectively. There are other options for controlling access to the archive, setting its format, and setting revision numbers, which are covered in the
rcs(1) manual page.