Easy SVN Web Administration

In the last month blog we were looking into "How to install and configure an SVN server".
The blog gives a basic SVN server configuration with command line and managing it through the command line. When we end up with more projects / users we need more repositories and managing the users authentication details becomes a nightmare. To simplify the user creation and repository management we can go for a web based SVN solution.

;-) Ohh don't think that we are going to do the Apache setup for each repository and more. We have a better solution.

Here comes a better SVN with USVN (User friendly SVN)

What do we need for this?
Requirements:

• PHP 5 (5.1.2 <= ver)
• apache2
• mod_dav_svn enable
• mod_rewrite enable
• subversion
• mod_svn enable
• mod_authz_svn enable

Steps to setup.
1. Download USVN from http://www.usvn.info/download
2. Extract the zip to the root directory of apache web directory
3. Access the page via web to start the installation and proceed through the installation.

Sample configurations followed in Success Factory.
1. Apache Config

###########################################
# Vhost: svn.successfactory.local #
# Note: we need proper DNS setup to #
# make the URL work #
###########################################
<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot /srv/www/svn.successfactory.local/htdocs
ServerName svn.successfactory.local
<Directory />
AllowOverride All
</Directory>
<Location /repository/>
ErrorDocument 404 default
DAV svn
Require valid-user
SVNParentPath /srv/svn
SVNListParentPath off
AuthType Basic
AuthName "USVN"
AuthUserFile /srv/svn/htpasswd
AuthzSVNAccessFile /srv/svn/authz
</Location>
</VirtualHost>

The SVN repository resides in /srv/svn as explained in SVN installation post.
An SQLite DB is selected to maintain the SVN management informations.

After installation we can manage the SVN through web like
http://svn.successfactory.local

You will come across a login page as shown below.




We can manage new projects / users / groups through the simple web panel as shown below.





Hope this USVN brings a peace of mind in administring multiple SVN repositories.

Install & Configure SVN Server

There are many tutorials available to work with SVN and the best of all is the
svnbook.read-bean.com, This article is about making a quick SVN server with very few steps without much issues.

Server Environment: Redhat / CentOS / Fedora

Install SVN
# yum install subversion

Create SVN Directory

# mkdir -p /srv/svn

Start SVN Server
# svnserve -d /srv/svn

Create SVN Repository
# svnadmin create /srv/svn/myproject

Create Users in /srv/svn/myproject/conf/passwd (Add the following lines)

admin = adM!nPassw0rd
developer = password

Grant User Permissions in /srv/svn/myproject/conf/auth (Add the following lines)

[/]
admin = rw
developer = rw

Test the setup
Checkout from different macine or in same machine with different directory

192.168.1.1 is assumed IP of the SVN server

# svn co http://192.168.1.1/myproject/ myproject

Test SVN Commit

# cd myproject
# echo "Hello World" > test.txt
# svn add test.txt
# svn commit -m "Test Commit"

You can checkout the same project from any machine but now you will find the test.txt.

More details on how to backup and restore svn and structuring to use are explained step by step in TechysPage(SVN-Revision-Control)
It would be good to go through the article in TechysPage.

The recent POST on User friendly SVN will help you to configure SVN with Admin panel