How to Install and Configure Apache Subversion (SVN) on CentOS 7/RHEL

Install & Configure Apache Subversion (SVN) on CentOS 7/RHEL

Apache Subversion (often abbreviated SVN, after the command namesvn) is a software versioning and revision control system distributed as free software under the Apache License. 

Software developers useSubversion to maintain current and historical versions of files such as source code, web pages, and documentation.

Step:1 Install SVN & Apache Packages

SVN & Apache (http) package are available in the default CentOS 7 repository. Use below yum command to install required packages :

[root@localhost ~]# yum install httpd subversion mod_dav_svn

Step:2 Edit the configuration file of Apache Subversion

Add the below lines in the config file (/etc/httpd/conf.modules.d/10-subversion)

[root@localhost ~]# vi /etc/httpd/conf.modules.d/10-subversion.conf
Alias /svn /var/www/svn
<Location /svn>
DAV svn
SVNParentPath /var/www/svn/
AuthType Basic
AuthName "SVN Repository"
AuthUserFile /etc/svn-auth-accounts
Require valid-user
</Location>

Above settings will allow only the authenticated users to use SVN repository.

Step:3 Create SVN Users using htpasswd command.

[root@localhost ~]# htpasswd -cm /etc/svn-auth-accounts hackthesec
New password:
Re-type new password:
Adding password for user hackthesec

In the above htpasswd command we have used ‘-c‘ & ‘-m‘ options. -c is used to create the password file ( /etc/svn-auth-accounts) and -m used to create MD5 encryption password for the user. To create second user remove the ‘-c’ from the above command otherwise it will overwrite existing file.

[root@localhost ~]# htpasswd -m /etc/svn-auth-accounts jack
New password:
Re-type new password:
Adding password for user jack

Step:4 Create & Configure SVN Repository

[root@localhost ~]# mkdir /var/www/svn
[root@localhost ~]# cd /var/www/svn/
[root@localhost svn]# svnadmin create repo
[root@localhost svn]# chown apache.apache repo/

Note : In case Selinux is enable then apply below selinux rules.

[root@localhost svn]# chcon -R -t httpd_sys_content_t /var/www/svn/repo/
[root@localhost svn]# chcon -R -t httpd_sys_rw_content_t /var/www/svn/repo/

Step:5 Start & enable the apache (httpd) service

[root@localhost ~]# systemctl restart httpd.service
[root@localhost ~]# systemctl enable httpd.service
ln -s '/usr/lib/systemd/system/httpd.service' '/etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/httpd.service'

Step:6 Try to access SVN repo from web browser.

In the browser just replace ip address with your SVN Server’s IP

Step:7 Disable anonymous access on SVN Repository

Edit the file – /var/www/svn/repo/conf/svnserve.conf, add the below two lines

## Disable Anonymous Access
anon-access = none

## Enable Access control
authz-db = authz

Step:8 Import Project Directory’s Content to SVN repository

Let’s first create Sample Project Directory and its file.

[root@localhost ~]# cd /mnt/
[root@localhost mnt]# mkdir linuxproject
[root@localhost mnt]# cd linuxproject/
[root@localhost linuxproject]# touch testfile_1 ; touch testfile_2

Now use SVN command to import linuxproject to the repo. As we have created sample linuxproject on the svn server itself.

[root@localhost linuxproject]# svn import -m "First SVN Repo" /mnt/linuxproject/ file:///var/www/svn/repo/linuxproject
Adding testfile_1
Adding testfile_2
Committed revision 1.

Now Check from the Browser

Step:9 Check Out the Project

In my case i want to checkout the linuxproject on my ubuntu laptop using SVN command. So to perform checkout operations please make your system has subversion package installed, if not then use “apt-get install subversion”command to install required package.

root@localhost:~$ mkdir svn_data
root@localhost:~$ pwd
/home/hackthesec
root@localhost:~$ svn co http://192.168.1.16/svn/repo/linuxproject /home/hackthesec/svn_data/ --username jack
Authentication realm: <http://192.168.1.16:80> SVN Repository
Password for 'jack': ********
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
ATTENTION! Your password for authentication realm:
<http://192.168.1.16:80> SVN Repository
can only be stored to disk unencrypted! You are advised to configure
your system so that Subversion can store passwords encrypted, if
possible. See the documentation for details.

You can avoid future appearances of this warning by setting the value
of the 'store-plaintext-passwords' option to either 'yes' or 'no' in
'/home/hackthesec/.subversion/servers'.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Store password unencrypted (yes/no)? yes
A svn_data/testfile_1
A svn_data/testfile_2
Checked out revision 1.

Step:10 Committing Changes

After making required changes in the project code , we can commit the changes to the SVN repos. In My case i have created one more file in linuxproject folder.

root@localhost:~$ cd /home/hackthesec/svn_data/
root@localhost:~/svn_data$ touch testfile_3
root@localhost:~/svn_data$ svn add testfile_3 --username jack
A testfile_3
root@localhost:~/svn_data$ svn commit -m "New File addedd" --username jack
Adding testfile_3
Transmitting file data .
Committed revision 2.

Note: While committing the changes if you are getting below error

svn: E000013: Commit failed (details follow):

svn: E000013: could not begin a transaction

Then to solve this error , make sure that apache user has read & write access to the entire repository.

[root@localhost repo]# chown -R apache:apache *
[root@localhost repo]# chmod -R 664 *