1.
http://oliverdavies.co.uk/blog/2011/10/install-and-configure-subversion-svn-server-ubuntu
2.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Subversion
3.
https://help.ubuntu.com/10.04/serverguide/subversion.html
4.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/60736/how-to-setup-a-subversion-svn-server-on-gnu-linux-ubuntu
5.
http://www.howtoforge.com/installing-subversion-and-configuring-access-through-different-protocols-on-ubuntu-11.10
6.
So,
I've been playing about with setting up SVN quickly and semi secure on a
Ubuntu server recently. SVN, because I don't mind it as a server
technology, it has its benefits over nothing, and it of course has its
own faults compared to other source and revision control software.
Indeed, its major selling point for me was simply that I have been
using it commercially at work for the best part of four years.
However,
previously I've always set it up on Kubuntu, with KDE to help me out,
what became apparent recently (on my Dell servers) was that I had no
GUI, I needed to get back to the command line to install this software.
Also
some of the examples out there on the Internet already make a real mess
of using CHMOD and other tricks to move the folders around, and some of
them reference htpasswd2, when you need to use htpasswd2 on Ubuntu
Server 10.04 and above.
So,
here are my set of commands, each with a little blurb about them, to
help you use just the command line on Ubuntu Server to set up SVN via
Apache2.
Prerequisites
1. Ubuntu Server ISO (on CD or DVD) to install onto your server or Virtual Machine.
2. Internet connection.
3.
If you want to use SSH to lock your noisy server in a cupboard and
administer it from a PC get Putty and follow step XX below.
Set the server up
Install
your server. I chose Ubuntu 11.04 64bit for my machines and installed
from a CD. I set it up as I wanted, the only thing I did was when
prompted to choose to install LAMP or Apache etc etc, I chose nothing, I
just started from the blank server.
Hmm looks like Visual Studio stuck a comment into my screen shot - ignore that,
make sure you have nothing picked in the DOS looking terminal style text.
Also,
remember to set your password and username for root... and at this
point... make sure the root password and username is NOT going to be one
of the usernames which can access SVN [that's just a bit of basic
security common sense].
So, my root for this demo has a username "mega" and my password is "maniac".
Once your server is up, and you are presented with the log in prompt come back to the sequence below.
Set up SSH
Log
into your server, physically in front of it, so i type "mega" and then
"maniac" and I get into the prompt, and the first thing I need to do is
install the SSH server, so I can get to the machine over the LAN, or
WAN.
Now,
I don't want this service to automatically start, so we're just going
to start is here once its installed. So, to install the open SSH server
type:
sudo apt-get install openssh-server
This
will tell the system to act as the super user to use aptitude to
install the package we want. Type that in and when is asked for the
sudo password for your root type in your password, so I now type
"maniac".
The
system will remember your sudo password for a short while now, so for
the next few commands you won't be asked for the sudo password, but
after that duration you will start to be asked for the sudo/root
password again. Don't worry, this is normal.
Once
you've entered your password the system will go out onto the Internet
and look for the open ssh server package, for me this tells me it needs
to download just over 1megabyte of data, so I select yes and let it
complete.
Once that is all complete, you need to start the server with the command:
sudo /etc/init.d/ssh start
When it is complete you should see the message:
* Starting OpenBSD Secure Shell server sshd [ OK ]
If
not, then you'll need to go out onto the Internet and see who can help
you. But if you're lucky enough to see the "OK" its time to exit from
your shell in front of your noisy server, close the server room door and
nip up to your quiet PC somewhere else. Before you go though you may
want to use the command "ifconfig" to tell you the IP address your new
server is on.
So, fire up the terminal program of your choice and connect to the server SSH server you set running.
Installing Apache & Subversion
Now
we need to install the three packages which allow us to use and host
SVN on the machine, these are SVN itself, Apache2 as our web server and
the library to link apache to SVN. So type:
sudo apt-get install apache2 subversion libapache2-svn
This should be just shy of 18 megabytes in size, depending on your situation, so let it complete.
Now, fire up a web browser and just check the apache server is running, you should have seen "* Starting wen server apache2 [ OK ]" scroll past, so we'll just check.
Type
into the browser address bar "http://" and the IP address of the server
and hit Go. You should see the standard "It works!" message from
apache2. If not, well something went wrong, again I'm not trying to
trouble shoot for you just show you a way that works, and has worked,
multiple times for Ubuntu Server.
Create your Repository
The
next thing we need to do is set up the subversion repository. Lots of
other tutorials and examples on the internet recommend putting the
repository in strange exotic paths, which require CHMOD and alsorts of
stuff being performed on the folders to give Apache access to them.
We're not going to bother with that, we're just going to stop the
folders being accessed from the browser by NOT creating our repository
in the www folder. Don't ever do that!
So, now create the repository with:
sudo svnadmin create /svn
This will create our svn repository in /svn off of the root of the disk. Remember that path, we'll need it in a moment.
Set apache to host Subversion
Now
we need to edit the apache2 module which points to SVN for us to point
at this new repository. So we need to do some editing of text, other
places use other tools, but I prefer nano as my text editor.
So, lets edit the first file, which is the config file:
sudo nano /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/dav_svn.conf
And it should come up looking just like this:
Now,
the lines of text in this file can be "commented out" by adding a # at
the front of them, as you see everything in this file is commented
out... so we need to uncomment some lines by removing the # from the
front.
So the lines to uncomment are:
< Location /svn >
DAV svn
SVNPath /var/lib/svn
And with this path line, change this to the path we created earlier. So I'm changing mine to read:
SVNPath /svn
The next items to uncomment are:
AuthType Basic
AuthName "Subversion Repository"
AuthUserFile /etc/apache2/dav_svn.passwrd
This
path for the user file is important, it is the file to the list of
users able to access your repository, so we'll be using that in a
moment!
And the final things to uncomment are:
Require valid-user
and
< / Location >
(Ignore the spaces in the / Location stuff, they're only there as blogger thinks they're tags in the HTML)
You
may see the Limit Except items around the require valid-user, I however
am putting my SVN on the Internet, so I do not want to allow anonymous
read, I therefore just want all users no-matter what they do, to have to
enter their username and password.
So,
with all that edited, you need to press "CTRL+O" to Write out the file
in nano, you'll be presented with the filename you are writing, press
enter if it is /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/dav_svn.conf. And then press
"CTRL+X" to exit.
Create SVN Users
Next we need to create at least one user who can access our repository. So back on the command line again we need to type:
sudo htpasswd -cm /etc/apache2/dav_svn.passwd < USERNAME >
Where
the "< USERNAME >" is the username they want, it will then ask
you to enter a password for this person twice. Remember, make this
password something different to your root/sudo user. For my SVN this is
"svnguy".
sudo htpasswd -cm /etc/apache2/dav_svn.passwd svnguy
The parameter -cm means to "Create" and to encrypt the file as "md5".
Later,
if you just want to add a user do not specify the "c" flag, as you do
not want to create the file again, you just want to encrypt the password
file, so you do:
sudo htpasswd -m /etc/apache2/dav_svn.passwd < USERNAME >
Restart Apache
Lastly we need to restart Apache, so type:
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
Finally, check its working
Now, we need to check our repository is working you need to jump back to your browser and where you had "http://" you need to add /svn onto the end of the URL. You should be prompted for the secure logon, so enter one of the
people you added with htpasswd and their paddword. And voila, you
should see your working SVN server ready for you to checkout and add
code to.
