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Wednesday, March 11, 2009

SVN+SSH Howto: Subversion Quick and Simple

Here's a quick and simple way to create a Subversion repository while maintaining security by using SSH and the filesystem permissions.
  1. Create users and add them to a group. There are a bunch of different ways to do this. I am only showing you how to create a group.
    groupadd svn-users

  2. Make a directory to house the repository.
    mkdir /var/lib/project

  3. Create the repository.
    svnadmin create /var/lib/project

  4. Change permissions to allow the group read/write access.
    cd /var/lib/project
    chgrp svn-users db db/transactions db/write-lock db/revs db/revprops hooks locks
    chmod 2770 db db/transactions db/revs db/revprops
    chmod 660 db/write-lock
    chmod 750 hooks
    chmod 770 locks
You can now have your users access the repository over SSH.

svn+ssh://username@server.example.com/var/lib/project

If your clients are on Windows, I recommend using TortoiseSVN.

Credit goes to the Carnival of Technology.