[Discuss] Setup An SVN Repository server

[blu at nedharvey.com (Edward Ned Harvey (blu))]

> From: discuss-bounces+blu=nedharvey.com at blu.org [mailto:discuss-
> bounces+blu=nedharvey.com at blu.org] On Behalf Of John Malloy
> 
> Does anyone have suggestions on the best way to Setup An SVN Repository
> server?
> 
> Are there templates out there?
> 
> Is this a fairly simple build?
> 
> What distro & tools are best?

Your basic choices will be to use http/https, ssh, or svnserve.
svnserve is the simplest, easiest to setup, highest performance, but also the least secure.  I recommend svnserve if you're going to have the server only available on a private LAN, and not otherwise.

If you're going to grant ssh to the server anyway, then you might as well do svn over ssh.  If you *don't* want to grant ssh access to the machine, then you're probably better off going with http/https.

http/https are the most complex to set up, and the least performant, but the most secure and the most robust.  You can lock down permissions on a per-directory basis, you can authenticate using any mechanism under the sun, you can SSL encrypt and make it securely exposed to the internet at large.  I recommend going this direction if these characteristics are a requirement for you, and I recommend the other simpler options if you don't need these features.

It's true that things like collabnet svn edge (and other basically appliance type distributions) will simplify installation and deployment for you.  But the downside of that is, you learn nothing, and hence, when you need to modify or tweak something, it's kind of beyond your control or outside of your scope.  So make up your mind, if you want to thoroughly read the subversion book (available for free reading on redbean) and roll your own...  Or go with one of these canned solutions, and hope you don't need to know any more about it...