Subversion

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Apache Subversion
is "a full-featured version control system originally designed to be a better
CVS
. Subversion has since expanded beyond its original goal of replacing CVS, but its basic model, design, and interface remain heavily influenced by that goal."
This article deals with setting up an svn-server on your machine. There are two popular svn-servers, the built in
svnserve
and the more advanced option,
Apache HTTP Server
with svn plugins.
Apache Subversion setup
Goals
The goal of this how to is to setup Subversion, with Apache. Why use Apache for Subversion? Well, quite simply, it provides features that the standalone
svnserve
does not have...
HTTPS support. This is more secure than the MD5 authentication used by svnserve.
fine-grained access controls. You can use Apache auth to limit permissions by directory. This means you can grant read access to everything, but commit access only to trunk for instance, while have another group with commit access to tags or branches.
a free repository viewer
The Subversion team is working on seamless WebDAV integration. At some point you should be able to use any WebDAV interface to update files in the repository.
Installation
Install
Apache HTTP Server
as described in its article.
Besides Apache, you will only need to
install
the
subversion
package.
Subversion configuration
Create a directory for your repositories:
# mkdir -p /home/svn/repositories
Edit /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
Ensure the following are listed...if not, add them (you will typically have to add just the last two), they must be in this order:
LoadModule dav_module           modules/mod_dav.so
LoadModule dav_fs_module        modules/mod_dav_fs.so
LoadModule dav_svn_module       modules/mod_dav_svn.so
LoadModule authz_svn_module     modules/mod_authz_svn.so
To SSL or not to SSL?
SSL for SVN access has a few benefits, for instance it allows you to use Apache's AuthType Basic, with little fear of someone sniffing passwords.
Generate the certificate by:
# cd /etc/httpd/conf/
# openssl req -new -x509 -keyout server.key -out server.crt -days 365 -nodes
Add the following to
/etc/httpd/conf/extra/httpd-ssl.conf
(or to
/etc/httpd/conf/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf
if you are not using ssl). Include the following inside of a virtual host directive:
<Location /svn>
   DAV svn
   SVNParentPath /home/svn/repositories
   AuthzSVNAccessFile /home/svn/.svn-policy-file
   AuthName "SVN Repositories"
   AuthType Basic
   AuthUserFile /home/svn/.svn-auth-file
   Require valid-user
</Location>
To make sure the SSL settings get loaded, uncomment the SSL configuration line in
/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
so it looks like this:
LoadModule ssl_module modules/mod_ssl.so
LoadModule socache_shmcb_module modules/mod_socache_shmcb.so
Include /etc/httpd/conf/extra/httpd-ssl.conf
Create /home/svn/.svn-policy-file
[/]
* = r

[REPO_NAME:/]
USER_NAME = rw
The * in the / section is matched to anonymous users. Any access above and beyond read only will be prompted for a user/pass by apache AuthType Basic. The REPO_NAME:/ section inherits permissions from those above, so anonymous users have read only permission to it. The last bit grants read/write permission of the REPO_NAME repository to the user USER_NAME.
Create /home/svn/.svn-auth-file
This is either an htpasswd, or htdigest file. I used htpasswd. Again, because of SSL, I do not worry as much about password sniffing. htdigest would provide even more security vs. sniffing, but at this point, I do not have a need for it. Run the following command
# htpasswd -cs /home/svn/.svn-auth-file USER_NAME
The above creates the file (
-c
) and uses SHA-1 for storing the password (
-s
). The user
USER_NAME
is created.
To add additional users, leave off the (
-c
) flag.
# htpasswd -s /home/svn/.svn-auth-file OTHER_USER_NAME
Create a repository
# svnadmin create /home/svn/repositories/REPO_NAME
Set permissions
The Apache user needs permissions over the new repository.
# chown -R http:http /home/svn/repositories/REPO_NAME
Create a project
Directory structure for project
Create a temporary directory with the
branches
tags
trunk
directory structure on your development machine.
$ mkdir -p ~/svn-import/{branches,tags,trunk}
Populate directory
Copy or move your project source files into the created trunk directory.
$ cp -R /my/existing/project/* ~/svn-import/trunk
Import the project
$ svn import -m "Initial import" ~/svn-import https://yourdomain.net/svn/REPO_NAME/
Test SVN checkout
$ svn checkout https://yourdomain.net/svn/REPO_NAME/ /my/svn/working/copy
If everything worked out, you should now have a working, checked out copy of your freshly created SVN repo.
Svnserve setup
Install the package
Install the
subversion
package.
Create a repository
Create your repository
mkdir /path/to/repos/
svnadmin create /path/to/repos/repo1
Your initial repository is empty, if you want to import files into it, use the following command.
svn import ~/code/project1 file:///path/to/repos/repo1 --message 'Initial repository layout'
Set access policies
Edit the file /path/to/repos/repo1/conf/svnserve.conf and uncomment or add the line under [general]
password-db = passwd
You might also want to change the default option for anonymous users.
anon-access = read
Replace "read" with "write" for a repository that anyone can commit to, or set it to "none" to disable all anonymous access.
Now edit the file /path/to/repos/repo1/conf/passwd
[users]
harry = foopassword
sally = barpassword
The above defines users harry and sally, with passwords foopassword and barpassword, change it as you like
Start the server daemon
Before you start the server, edit the configuration file:
/etc/conf.d/svnserve
SVNSERVE_ARGS="--root=/path/to/repos"
The
--root=/path/to/repos
option set the root of repository tree. If you have multiple repositories use
--root=/path-to/reposparent
. Then access independent repositories by passing in repository name in the URL:
svn://host/repo1
(Make sure that the user has read/write access to the repository files.)
Optionally add a
--listen-port
if you want a different port, or other options.
By default, the service runs as root. If you want to change that, add a drop-in:
/etc/systemd/system/svnserve.service.d/50-custom.conf
[Service]
User=svn
Now start the
svnserve.service
daemon
.
svn+ssh
To use svn+ssh://, we have to have a wrapper written for svnserve.
check where the svnserve binary is located:
# which svnserve
/usr/local/bin/svnserve
Our wrapper is going to have to fall in PATH prior to this location...
Create
a wrapper with the following content:
/usr/bin/svnserve
#!/bin/sh
# wrapper script for svnserve
umask 007
/usr/local/bin/svnserve -r /path/to "$@"
Then, make it
executable
.
-r /path/to
is what makes use of the svn co svn+
ssh://server.domain.com:/reponame
instead of
:/path/to/reponame
.
Start svnserve with new wrapper script like so:
# /usr/bin/svnserve -d  ( start daemon mode )
we can also check the perms for remote users like this:
$ svn ls svn+ssh://server.domain.com:/reponame
++server.domain.com++
dev/
qa/
release/
Subversion backup and restore
To back up your subversion repositories, do this for each repository you have.
$ svnadmin dump /path/to/
repo
> /tmp/
repo
.dump
To restore the backup, create the corresponding repositories first:
$ svnadmin create /path/to/
repo
Then load svn dump into new repo:
$ svnadmin load /path/to/
repo
< /tmp/
repo
.dump
Setting permissions:
$ chown -R svn:svnusers /path/to/
repo
$ chmod -R g+w /path/to/
repo
/db/
These repositories should now be all setup.
Subversion clients
See also
Wikipedia:Comparison of Subversion clients
.
kdesvn
— Subversion client for KDE.
https://apps.kde.org/kdesvn/
||
kdesvn
RabbitVCS
— Set of graphical tools written to provide simple and straightforward access to the version control systems you use.
http://rabbitvcs.org/
||
rabbitvcs
AUR
See also
https://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.1/svn-book.html#svn-ch-9-sect-2.2-re-load
https://subversion.apache.org/