Foreword

This tutorial covers installing Subversion (SVN) Server and configuring it to run through Apache on Fedora 24, but these steps will work on any Red Hat Linux distro (Fedora / CentOS / RHEL).

Prerequisites

You will need:

• Fedora 24+
• Sudo or Root Access

Steps

Install Subversion (SVN)

1. Install SVN:
$ sudo dnf install -y mod_dav_svn subversion

Install Apache and Start It

2. Install Apache, enable it to start on boot, and start it immediately:
$ sudo dnf install -y httpd
$ sudo systemctl enable httpd
$ sudo systemctl start httpd

Create an Apache Configuration File for SVN

3. Create a subversion.conf file for Apache:
$ sudo vim /etc/httpd/conf.d/subversion.conf

Paste the following within it:
LoadModule dav_svn_module modules/mod_dav_svn.so
LoadModule authz_svn_module modules/mod_authz_svn.so

<Location /svn>
    DAV svn
    SVNPath /var/www/svn/repos
    AuthType Basic
    AuthName “Subversion repos”
    AuthUserFile /etc/svn-auth-conf
    Require valid-user
</Location>

Create a Password Authentication File for Accessing SVN

4. Create a .passwd file for each user requiring authentication to the SVN repositories.

For the first user:
$ sudo htpasswd -cm /etc/svn-auth-conf <username>
(enter a password)

For each additional user:
$ htpasswd -m /etc/svn-auth-conf <additional_username>
(enter a password and repeat for all desired users)

Create the SVN Repository

5. Create the SVN repository within a web accessible directory:
$ sudo mkdir -p /var/www/svn
$ cd /var/www/svn
$ sudo svnadmin create repos

Set the ownership to Apache so permissions work:
$ sudo chown -R apache:apache /var/www/svn/repos

Restart Apache

6. Restart Apache to have the SVN configuration file and password authentication take effect:
$ sudo systemctl restart httpd

Verify SVN is Accessible

7. Verify you can access the SVN repository via your browser:
Go to http://<server_ip_or_domain_name>/svn
(Enter the password for the user you created)

Create an SVN Project Directory

8. Create a project directory and its subdirectories/files for your SVN repository:
# cd /tmp
# mkdir testproject
# vi testproject/test.txt
(enter “This is a test” and save the file)

Import the Project into SVN

9. Import the project into the SVN repository:
# svn import /tmp/testproject file:///var/www/svn/repos/testproject -m “Initial import of repository”

Checkout the SVN Repo on Another Machine

10. Checkout your SVN repo on another machine to test that checkouts work:
[user@someothermachine]$ mkdir ~/svn
$ cd ~/svn
$ svn checkout http://<server_ip_or_domain_name>/svn/repos/testproject

Change Security Context to Allow Commits

11. Permit the other machine and/or users to make commits to the SVN repo:
$ sudo chcon -R -t httpd_sys_content_t /var/www/svn/repo
$ sudo chcon -R -t httpd_sys_rw_content_t /var/www/svn/repo