diff --git a/Documentation/git-cvsserver.txt b/Documentation/git-cvsserver.txt
index f2e4a47ebe..4d13367c77 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-cvsserver.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-cvsserver.txt
@@ -118,13 +118,11 @@ for example:
    myuser:$1$BA)@$vbnMJMDym7tA32AamXrm./
 ------
 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:
 ------
diff --git a/git-cvsserver.perl b/git-cvsserver.perl
index ed035f32c2..4c93b5d099 100755
--- a/git-cvsserver.perl
+++ b/git-cvsserver.perl
@@ -222,7 +222,7 @@
         open my $passwd, "<", $authdb or die $!;
         while (<$passwd>) {
             if (m{^\Q$user\E:(.*)}) {
-                if (crypt($user, descramble($password)) eq $1) {
+                if (crypt(descramble($password), $1) eq $1) {
                     $auth_ok = 1;
                 }
             };
diff --git a/t/t9400-git-cvsserver-server.sh b/t/t9400-git-cvsserver-server.sh
index 2d29d486ee..59b40359c7 100755
--- a/t/t9400-git-cvsserver-server.sh
+++ b/t/t9400-git-cvsserver-server.sh
@@ -36,6 +36,8 @@ CVSWORK="$PWD/cvswork"
 CVS_SERVER=git-cvsserver
 export CVSROOT CVS_SERVER
 
+PWDHASH='lac2ItudM3.KM'
+
 rm -rf "$CVSWORK" "$SERVERDIR"
 test_expect_success 'setup' '
   git config push.default matching &&
@@ -54,7 +56,7 @@ 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