How to install Subversion on Plesk 8.1
I will try to explain step by step how I installed Subversion on a Virtual Private Server wich runs Plesk 8.1.1 as control panel and Suse Linux 9.3 as operating system:
First step is to download subversion package, now the latest version is 1.4.4. It is very nice that they offer also a package with dependencies. So, we download:
Unpack them:
# tar -zxvf subversion-1.4.4.tar.gz # tar -zxvf subversion-deps-1.4.4.tar.gz
The second command will include the dependencies in the same directory with main subversion package.
We compile and install the subversion package and dependencies:
# cd subversion-1.4.4 # ./autogen.sh # ./configure # make # cp /etc/apache2/sysconfig.d/loadmodule.conf /etc/apache2/httpd2-prefork.conf # make install # cp /etc/apache2/httpd2-prefork.conf /etc/apache2/sysconfig.d/loadmodule.conf
Now, checking the differences between these two files we have:
# diff /etc/apache2/sysconfig.d/loadmodule.conf /etc/apache2/httpd2-prefork.conf 30a31,32 > LoadModule dav_svn_module /usr/lib/apache2/mod_dav_svn.so > LoadModule authz_svn_module /usr/lib/apache2/mod_authz_svn.so
so, we can see that already the modules are in the right place.
Edit /etc/ld.so.conf to include /usr/lib and /usr/lib/apache2 and then run:
# /sbin/ldconfig
IMPORTANT: in /etc/apache2/sysconfig.d/loadmodule.conf we need also:
LoadModule dav_module /usr/lib/apache2-prefork/mod_dav.so
before the previous two lines. dav_module has to appear before dav_svn_module in file. If you don’t have this line before, you will see next message when you try to restart apache server:
Cannot load /usr/lib/apache2/mod_dav_svn.so into server: /usr/lib/apache2/mod_dav_svn.so: undefined symbol: dav_xml_get_cdata
so, my file looks like this (only last three important lines):
[...] LoadModule dav_module /usr/lib/apache2-prefork/mod_dav.so LoadModule dav_svn_module /usr/lib/apache2/mod_dav_svn.so LoadModule authz_svn_module /usr/lib/apache2/mod_authz_svn.so
Edit /etc/sysconfig/apache2 and add: “dav mod_dav_svn mod_authz_svn” to APACHE_MODULES section. My specific section is like this:
APACHE_MODULES="mod_perl access actions alias auth auth_dbm autoindex cgi dir env expires include log_config mime negotiation setenvif ssl userdir php4 php5 /usr/lib/apache2-prefork/mod_frontpage.so python suexec rewrite dav mod_dav_svn mod_authz_svn"
Now is time to create our repository and set the correct owner and group for it:
# svnadmin create /home/svn # chown -R apacheuser:apachegroup /home/svn
If you edit /srv/www/vhosts/domain.com/conf/httpd.include and add at the end something, Plesk will remove your changes.
So, we need to create a new file vhost.conf and to use this file. I will create /srv/www/vhosts/domain.com/conf/vhost.conf and I will put inside:
<Location /svn> DAV svn SVNPath /home/svn </Location>
for a subdomain the file has to be in /srv/www/vhosts/domain.com/subdomains/NAME/conf
Now, you need to tell Plesk to update it’s information. You have to run:
# /usr/local/psa/admin/sbin/websrvmng -u --vhost-name=domain.com
this will configure plesk only for one single domain, in this case domain.com
If you want to configure it for all sites run:
# /usr/local/psa/admin/bin/websrvmng -a
Restart apache web server:
# /usr/sbin/apache2ctl stop # /usr/sbin/apache2ctl start
Check the repository:
http://domain.com/svn
So, it seems that it is working, we can see:
Revision 0: / Powered by Subversion version 1.4.4 (r25188).
I hope that also for you. 
)
Next step is to restrict the access to our repository to give access only for some users:
DAV svn SVNPath /home/svn/ AuthType Basic AuthName “Private Repository” AuthUserFile /etc/svn_auth_file Require valid-user
We can add first user which is able to access our repository (use htpasswd2 if you have apache2):
# htpasswd -cm /etc/svn_auth_file firstuser
-m means that we want to use MD5 encryption for passwords
To add the second user (don’t use -c option, it is used only the first time to create svn_auth_file):
# htpasswd -m /etc/svn_auth_file seconduser
Bye!
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Comments
Thnak you far that great tutorial. But I’ve relly problems to secure my repositry from web acces. I only want to manage the reporitry on my server and don’t want people to view the files in it. If I add “Require valid-user” in my vhost.conf file, I get a Error 500 from my server.
@Steff, you have to put them in .htaccess not in vhost.conf file. Please look here: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/1.3/howto/htaccess.html
for details and how to manage this.
hello,
I did it like this, also the right order in loadmodule.con, but I get this error, when I stop apache2
Cannot load /usr/lib/apache2/mod_dav_svn.so into server: /usr/lib/apache2/mod_dav_svn.so: undefined symbol: svn_txdelta_to_svndiff2
I took svn 1.1.6, is this the Problem?
jos
Thank you very much for this great tutorial!! Saved me a lot of grey hairs.
P.S.: this works also with subversion 1.3.0
Thanks for this great tutorial. Helped me out where others (and official ones) failed =)