CONFIGURING SVN SERVER IN UBUNTU

Subversion is an open source version control system. Using Subversion, you can record the history of source files and documents. It manages files and directories over time. A tree of files is placed into a central repository. The repository is much like an ordinary file server, except that it remembers every change ever made to files and directories

Lets see the configuration of Subversion repository in Ubuntu 9.10 server edition OS.

Install the following pre-requisites packages:

apt-get install apache2 subversion libapache2-svn

You can create SVN repository with the following command

svnadmin create /svn.linux.com

Create a dir from where you want to add/import contents to the repository

mkdir /importloc

mkdir /import/loc/test1

Import Contents to the repository

svn import /importloc/test1 file:///svn.linux.com/test1 -m "test1 repo"

Configuring users’ access level can be done with authz in the following location

cd /svn.linux.com/conf

vim authz

[groups]

admin=linux

##Here admin is a group; linux is a user.

[/]

@admin=rw

## Here, rw -> Groups will have read and write permission

r -> read only permission

‘’ -> no permission

:wq

Generate a password for the user ‘linux’

htpasswd -mc /svn.linux.com/conf/passwd linux

Subversion can be configured to be accessed through WebDAV protocol via Apache webserver

Configuration of WebDAV access for Subversion is as follows

Create a soft link with the default webpage of the system

cd /etc/apache2/sites-available

ln -s /etc/apache2/sites-available/default /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/svn.linux.com

cd /etc/apache2/sites-enabled

Before editing svn.linux.com file, delete all the contents of it and populate it with the following confs

vim svn.linux.com

# ServerName svn.linux.com

DAV svn

AuthType Basic

AuthName "svn.linux.com"

AuthUserFile /svn.linux.com/conf/passwd

AuthzSVNAccessFile /svn.linux.com/conf/authz

SVNPath /svn.linux.com

Require valid-user

## For Enabling Logging

CustomLog /var/log/apache2/svn.linux.com/access.log combined

ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/svn.linux.com/error.log

#SSLEngine on

#SSLCertificateFile /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.pem

For enabling Subversion Logging

cd /var/log

mkdir svn.linux.com

cd svn.linux.com

touch access.log error.log

/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Once done all this, open internet Explorer in client machine and type http://svn.linux.com

You will be prompted for credentials, passing through which you should be able to access the repository.

SVN Client software for committing/updating to/from the SVN repository in Windows machine is Tortoise SVN client software. This software can be downloaded from http://tortoisesvn.net/downloads

Accessing the SVN repository from linux clients will be updated in my next post.