%general-entities; ]> $LastChangedBy$ $Date$ This section will describe how to set up, administer and secure a Subversion server. Subversion Server Dependencies Required and The following instructions will install a Subversion server, which will be set up to use OpenSSH as the secure remote access method, with svnserve available for anonymous access. Configuration of the Subversion server consists of the following steps: You'll need to be user root for the initial portion of configuration. Create the svn user and group with the following commands: groupadd -g 56 svn && useradd -c "SVN Owner" -d /home/svn -m -g svn -s /bin/false -u 56 svn If you plan to have multiple repositories, you should have a group dedicated to each repository for ease of administration. Create the svntest group for the test repository and add the svn user to that group with the following commands: groupadd -g 57 svntest && usermod -G svntest -a svn Additionally you should set umask 002 while working with a repository so that all new files will be writable by owner and group. This is made mandatory by creating a wrapper script for svn and svnserve: mv /usr/bin/svn /usr/bin/svn.orig && mv /usr/bin/svnserve /usr/bin/svnserve.orig && cat >> /usr/bin/svn << "EOF" #!/bin/sh umask 002 /usr/bin/svn.orig "$@" EOF cat >> /usr/bin/svnserve << "EOF" #!/bin/sh umask 002 /usr/bin/svnserve.orig "$@" EOF chmod 0755 /usr/bin/svn{,serve} If you use Apache for working with the repository over HTTP, even for anonymous access, you should wrap /usr/sbin/httpd in a similar script. With subversion-1.1.0 and greater, a new type of repository data-store is available, FSFS. There is a tradeoff for speed with the new backend, however, the repository can now be placed on a network mount, and any corruption does not require an admin to recover the repository. For more information and comparison between FSFS and BDB, see . Create a new Subversion repository with the following commands: install -v -m 0755 -d /srv && install -v -m 0755 -o svn -g svn -d /srv/svn/repositories && svnadmin create --fs-type fsfs /srv/svn/repositories/svntest Now that the repository is created, it should be populated with with something useful. You'll need to have a predefined directory layout set up exactly as you want your repository to look. For example, here is a sample BLFS layout setup with a root of svntest/. You'll need to setup a directory tree similar to the following: svntest/ # The name of the repository trunk/ # Contains the existing source tree BOOK/ bootscripts/ edguide/ patches/ scripts/ branches/ # Needed for additional branches tags/ # Needed for tagging release points Once you've created your directory layout as shown above, you are ready to do the initial import: svn import -m "Initial import." \ </path/to/source/tree> \ file:///srv/svn/repositories/svntest Now change owner and group information on the repository, and add an unprivileged user to the svn and svntest groups: chown -R svn:svntest /srv/svn/repositories/svntest && chmod -R g+w /srv/svn/repositories/svntest && chmod g+s /srv/svn/repositories/svntest/db && usermod -G svn,svntest -a <username> svntest is the group assigned to the svntest repository. As mentioned earlier, this eases administration of multiple repositories when using OpenSSH for authentication. Going forward, you'll need to add your unprivileged user, and any additional users that you wish to have write access to the repository, to the svn and svntest groups. In addition, you'll notice that the new repository's db directory is set-groupID. If the reasoning is not immediately obvious, when using any external authentication method (such as ssh), the sticky bit is set so that all new files will be owned by the user, but group of svntest. Anyone in the svntest group can create files, but still give the entire group write access to those files. This avoids locking out other users from the repository. Now, return to an unprivileged user account, and take a look at the new repository using svnlook: svnlook tree /srv/svn/repositories/svntest/ You may need to log out and back in again to refresh your group memberships. 'su <username>' should work as well. As mentioned previously, these instructions will configure the server to use only ssh for write access to the repository and to provide anonymous access using svnserve. There are several other ways to provide access to the repository. These additional configurations are best explained at . Access configuration needs to be done for each repository. Create the svnserve.conf file for the svntest repository using the following commands: cp /srv/svn/repositories/svntest/conf/svnserve.conf \ /srv/svn/repositories/svntest/conf/svnserve.conf.default && cat > /srv/svn/repositories/svntest/conf/svnserve.conf << "EOF" [general] anon-access = read auth-access = write EOF There is not a lot to the configuration file at all. You'll notice that only the general section is required. Take a look at the svnserve.conf.default file for information on using svnserve's built-in authentication method. To start the server at boot time, install the svn bootscript included in the package. svn make install-svn