Installing and Configure SVN Server on Centos 6.7 / Redhat 6.x

What is SVN (Subversion)?

Subversion is a free/open-source version control system. Subversion manages files and directories, and the changes made to them, over time. This allows you to recover older versions of your data, or examine the history of how your data changed. 

1. Install the wandisco repo to get the latest version of subversion for CentOS

# vi /etc/yum.repos.d/subsvn.repo

[WandiscoSVN]

name=Wandisco SVN Repo

baseurl=http://opensource.wandisco.com/centos/6/svn-1.8/RPMS/$basearch/

enabled=1

gpgcheck=0

2.  Install needed packages (mod_dav_svn and subversion)

# yum install subversion mod_dav_svn

3. Modify / Create Subversion config file /etc/httpd/conf.d/subversion.conf

Add following config to /etc/httpd/conf.d/subversion.conf file:

# vi  /etc/httpd/conf.d/subversion.conf

<Location /svn>

    DAV svn

    SVNParentPath /var/www/svn

       SVNListParentPath On

 AuthType Basic

       AuthName "Subversion repositories"

       AuthUserFile /etc/svn-auth-users

       Require valid-user

</Location>

4. Add SVN (Subversion) users

Add 2 test users so that we can see the different type of permissions 

# htpasswd -cm /etc/svn-auth-users testuser

New password: 

Re-type new password: 

Adding password for user testuser

# htpasswd -m /etc/svn-auth-users testuser2

New password: 

Re-type new password: 

Adding password for user testuser2

5. Create and configure SVN repository

# mkdir /var/www/svn

# cd /var/www/svn

# svnadmin create testrepo
# chown -R apache.apache testrepo

## If you have SELinux enabled (you can check it with "sestatus" command) ##

## then change SELinux security context with chcon command ##

# chcon -R -t httpd_sys_content_t /var/www/svn/testrepo

## Following enables commits over http ##

# chcon -R -t httpd_sys_rw_content_t /var/www/svn/testrepo

6. Restart the apache to test the configuration 

# service httpd restart

Goto http://localhost/svn/testrepo address and you should see something like following, write username and password:

7. Configure repository

To disable anonymous access and enable access control add following rows to testrepo/conf/svnserve.conf file:

## Edit the testrepo/conf/svnserve.conf ## 

# vi testrepo/conf/svnserve.conf

## Disable anonymous access ##

anon-access = none

## Enable access control ##

authz-db = authz

8. Create trunk, branches and tags structure under testrepo

# mkdir -p /tmp/svn-structure/{trunk,branches,tags}

Then import template to project repository using “svn import” command:

Shell

# svn import -m 'Initial import' /tmp/svn-structure/ http://localhost/svn/testrepo/

Setup SVN (Subversion) Access Control with Apache and mod_authz_svn

9. Add SVN (Subversion) users

## Create testuser ##

# htpasswd -c -m /etc/svn-auth-users testuser

New password: 

Re-type new password: 

Adding password for user testuser

## Create testuser2 ##

# htpasswd -m /etc/svn-auth-users testuser2

New password: 

Re-type new password: 

Adding password for user testuser2

10. Create SVN Access Control file

# touch /etc/svn-access-control

# vi /etc/svn-access-control

add the following to the files 

[groups]

testreadgroup = testuser

testrwgroup = testuser2

[testrepo:/]

@testreadgroup = are

testrwgroup = rw

[testrepo1:/]

@testreadgroup = r

testuser2 = rw 

11. Add AuthzSVNAccessFile to subversion server config

Add AuthzSVNAccessFile row to config:

# vi  /etc/httpd/conf.d/subversion.conf

AuthzSVNAccessFilesvn /etc/-access-control

Finally /etc/httpd/conf.d/subversion.conf file should look something like following:

<Location /svn>

   DAV svn

   SVNParentPath /var/www/svn   

   AuthType Basic

   AuthName "Subversion repositories"

   AuthUserFile /etc/svn-auth-users

   AuthzSVNAccessFile /etc/svn-access-control   

   Require valid-user   

</Location>

12. Restart Apache Web Server

# service httpd restart 

Related links:

How to setup and install SVN reposotary

How to Backup and Restore SVN Repos

Keywords: Subversion, SVN, SVN Server, Adding Users on SVN Server, Backup SVN, Restore SVN.