Creating A New Repo

New repository can be created with two different options:

1. Using command line

Execute following command. It will create a directory for the repository, but parent path has to be present. i.e. in the following example, /var/svn should already be there, while it will create my_repository directory.

svnadmin create /var/svn/my_repository

If you are using TortoiseSVN, you can use GUI to create repo.

1. Open the directory where you want to create a new repository.
2. Right click on the folder and select TortoiseSVN -> Create Repository here...
3. A repository is then created inside the selected folder. Don’t edit those files yourself! If you get any errors make sure that the folder is empty and not write protected.

Create new user

To add user, use following command

htpasswd /etc/subversion/passwd user_name

Specify user_name with the username you wish to add in above command. It will prompt to provide password for the user.

If you are creating very first user, you need to add –c switch in above command, which will create the file.

htpasswd -c /etc/subversion/passwd user_name

You can check existence of the file or list of configured users using following command cat /etc/subversion/passwd

You might need to execute above commands as super user.

Create user groups

Groups can be defined in /etc/subversion/svn_access_control file.

Create/edit the file using following command

nano /etc/subversion/svn_access_control

Use syntax specified as below to define groups and assign members.

[groups]
groupname = <list of users, comma separated>

e.g.

[groups]
myproject-dev = john, peter
myproject-support = maria, cristine

Above example will create two groups named myproject-dev and myproject-support. It will add users john and peter to group myproject-dev and users maria and cristine to group myproject-support.

Groups can then be used to manage repository access

Managing repository permissions

Access specifications for subversion repositories is specified etc/subversion/svn_access_control file

Create/edit the file using following command

nano /etc/subversion/svn_access_control

Use following syntax to configure access permissions for repositories to group/members

[Repository:<Path>]
@groupname = r/rw
User = r

e.g.

[myproject:/]
@myproject-dev = rw
@myproject-support = r
jack = r
            
[myproject:/branches/support]
@myproject-support = rw
patrick = r

Above example configuration will grant read-write access to entire myproject repository to users belonging to group myproject-dev, while read-only access is granted to users belonging to group myproject-support and specific user jack. Note that, group names are preceded by @.

Similarly, it will assign read-write access to support branch of myproject repository to all users belonging to myproject-support and read-only access to patrick.