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

Subversion, widely known as SVN, is open source version control system used for storing the historical changes of source file and documents, and manages it over a period of time. This post helps you to setup SVN on CentOS 7.

Installing WebServer:

Update the system.

yum update

Here we will install Apache server as webserver for the SVN repository.

yum -y install httpd httpd-tools

Allow httpd through firewall

firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=http firewall-cmd --reload

Start the Apache and verify it by visiting http://your.ip.address.

systemctl start httpd.service

Installing Subversion:

Once the Apache is installed, issue the following command to install subversion.

yum -y install subversion subversion-tools mod_dav_svn

Configuring Subversion:

Once the installation is done, you can start to create repositories as per the requirements. In my case i am creating /svn as the base and will create the repository in it.

mkdir /svn

Create the repository called “testrepo”

svnadmin create /svn/testrepo

Change the permission of the repository in such a way that Apache can read and write.

chown -R apache:apache /svn/testrepo/

If you have SELinux enabled on the system, run the following command.

chcon -R -t httpd_sys_content_t /svn/testrepo/ chcon -R -t httpd_sys_rw_content_t /svn/testrepo/

Configure virtual host in Apache.

vi /etc/httpd/conf.d/svn.conf

Place the following content.

<location /svn>
DAV svn
SVNParentPath /svn
</location>

Restart the apache server.

systemctl reload httpd.service

Access the SVN using the browser, url will be http://your-ip-address/svn/testrepo. It wont ask you any password to view.

CentOS 7 – SVN Without Authendication

Securing SVN: (Optional)

The above setting would allow the anonymous users to view and committing the files. To stop the anonymous access, you have to edit the apache configuration which was created just two steps before.

vi /etc/httpd/conf.d/svn.conf

Place the following content.

<location /svn> DAV svn SVNParentPath /svn/ AuthType Basic AuthName "Authorization Realm" AuthUserFile /etc/subversion/svn.users Require valid-user </location>

Created the password file for the user.

htpasswd -cm /etc/subversion/svn.users raj

Restart the apache server.

systemctl reload httpd.service

Testing Subversion:

You can visit the url http://your-ip-address/svn/testrepo to check out the content, you will be asked to enter the user name and password (If you have setup the Secure SVN.

CentOS 7 – SVN With Authentication Asking Password

Upon successful login; content will be listed like below.

CentOS 7 – SVN With Authentication

Create a template directory and  import into SVN.

mkdir -p /tmp/repository/project1/{trunk,branches,tags} svn import -m 'Initial Import' /tmp/repository/project1/ http://192.168.12.106/svn/testrepo

Output will be like below.

CentOS 7 – SVN Import

Check out the Revision 1.

CentOS 7 – SVN Revision 1

That All!.. You can use the SVN client such as Tortoisesvn for windows and Rapidsvn for Linux.