Subversion Via Apache

Basic Auth

Assuming you have apache set up, and you have subversion installed, go get the svn-apache library

  aptitude install libapache2-svn

now you should see 3 new mods starting with dav enabled, and one dav_svn.conf file

  ls -l /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/

make sure your servername is set correctly

  grep -i servername /etc/apache2/apache2.conf

now edit /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/dav_svn.conf, here is mine for reference

  # Dav_svn.conf - Example Subversion/Apache configuration
  #
  # For details and further options see the Apache user manual and
  # the Subversion book.
  
  # <Location URL> ... </Location>
  # URL controls how the repository appears to the outside world.
  # In this example clients access the repository as http://hostname/svn/
  <Location /svn>
  
    # Uncomment this to enable the repository,
    DAV svn
  
    # Set this to the path to your repository
    SVNPath /home/data/svn-repo/
  
    # The following allows for basic http authentication.  Basic authentication
    # should not be considered secure for any particularly rigorous definition of
    # secure.
  
    # Uncomment the following 3 lines to enable Basic Authentication
    AuthType Basic
    AuthName "Subversion Repository"
    AuthUserFile /etc/apache2/digest/dav_svn.passwd
  
    # Uncomment the following line to enable Authz Authentication
    # AuthzSVNAccessFile /etc/apache2/dav_svn.authz
  
    # The following three lines allow anonymous read, but make
    # committers authenticate themselves.
  
    <LimitExcept GET PROPFIND OPTIONS REPORT>
      Require valid-user
    </LimitExcept>
  
  </Location>

Now create the hashed password for basic authentication, anyone can read, but this authentication is only for submitting

    htpasswd2 -c /etc/apache2/digest/dav_svn.passwd ericp

now restart apache

    sudo /usr/sbin/apache2ctl graceful

LDAP Auth

Goal, make the directory /svn/ require a user name and password, using a central ldap server. Just like before, you need to have apache set up, go get the svn-apache library

  aptitude install libapache2-svn

now you should see 3 new mods starting with dav enabled, and one dav_svn.conf file

  ls -l /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/

ok first make sure you have the mods, auth_ldap, I'm using Debian so it is installed with apache2-common deb.

  ls -l /etc/apache2/mods-available/auth_ldap.load

Now make sure its linked in, again with debain this just requires a soft link, other distros will need to make conf changes to their http.conf

  ln -s /etc/apache2/mods-available/auth_ldap.load /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/auth_ldap.load

Now we need to change the directory settings. With Debian these setting are in /etc/apache2/mod-enabled/dav_svn.conf. Check out Apache LDAP Authentication for details. The usernames and passwords are stored in LDAP. See Installing Open LDAP to get that set up.

 # dav_svn.conf - Example Subversion/Apache configuration
  #
  # For details and further options see the Apache user manual and
  # the Subversion book.
  
  # <Location URL> ... </Location>
  # URL controls how the repository appears to the outside world.
  # In this example clients access the repository as http://hostname/svn/
  <Location /svn>
  
    # Uncomment this to enable the repository,
    DAV svn
  
    # Set this to the path to your repository
    SVNPath /home/data/svn-repo/
  
    # The following allows for basic http authentication.  Basic authentication
    # should not be considered secure for any particularly rigorous definition of
    # secure.
  
    # Uncomment the following 3 lines to enable Basic Authentication
    #AuthType Basic
    #AuthName "Subversion Repository"
    #AuthUserFile /etc/apache2/digest/dav_svn.passwd
  
    # Comment the following 3 liens to disable LDAP Authentication
    AuthType Basic
    AuthName "Subversion Repository"
    AuthLDAPURL ldap://localhost/ou=people,dc=example,dc=org
  
    # Uncomment the following line to enable Authz Authentication
    # AuthzSVNAccessFile /etc/apache2/dav_svn.authz
  
    # The following three lines allow anonymous read, but make
    # committers authenticate themselves.
  
    <LimitExcept GET PROPFIND OPTIONS REPORT>
      Require valid-user
    </LimitExcept>
  
  </Location>

Now restart

  sudo /usr/sbin/apache2ctl graceful

all done test it out! http://localhost/svn/