diff --git a/git-cvsserver.perl b/git-cvsserver.perl
index ca519b7e49a0b2cc5104f71459fe621041382f19..197014d9e6cdf3285005262a9e53804860e489c7 100755
--- a/git-cvsserver.perl
+++ b/git-cvsserver.perl
@@ -17,6 +17,7 @@
 
 use strict;
 use warnings;
+use bytes;
 
 use Fcntl;
 use File::Temp qw/tempdir tempfile/;