[UPHPU] svn over wan

[Lonnie Olson]

On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 2:09 AM, Chad Sollis <lists at sollis.net> wrote:
>
> Hey all,
>
> I am trying to setup svn server on my mac that I would like to expose
> (unless I am overlooking any huge security problems) over a specific
> port, with passwd authentication.
>
> I can connect to the repo by doing referencing the repo like this file:///path/to/repo
>
> however, when I try to connect using svn://localhost/repo or svn://192.168.0.150/repo
>  or svn://my.hostname.com/repo it does not work, no real helpful
> error messages either.
>
> am I missing something?  I have svnserver -d --local-port=3960 running
> (I will be changing the port number from the default)

You need to set the -r parameter to indicate the root of your SVN
server.  Otherwise it will choose your root filesystem.

Example Repository:
cd ~
mkdir repos
cd repos
svnadmin create test

There is now an SVN repository located at /home/username/repos/test

Run svnserve:
svnserve -d
svn co svn://localhost/test

Fails, This will try to access a repository at /test

svnserve -d -r .
svn co svn://localhost/test

Works, this will try to access a repository at ./test

Even better:
svnserve -d -r /home/username/repos
svn co svn://localhost/test

Works.

Another option is to limit the root to the repo itself:
svnserve -d -r /home/username/repos/test
svn co svn://localhost/



Also, I want to mention a pet peeve of mine.  Changing the default ports.
Changing the default port add *zero* additional real security.  Only
fake security through obscurity.

If you are not going to implement Apache SVN modules and use https
with authentication, you should leave svnserve at the default port,
but secure it through real means.
* VPN
* SSH tunnel
* Firewall rules