Re: Feature suggestion for read-only access to fsfs repos over http

Henrik Thostrup Jensen wrote:
> I have a local fsfs repo, which I want to allow read-only access to one
> of my friends. Unfortunately he does have access to the development
Is this a typo? ^^^^

> machine and I cannot run a server on the machine, since it is heavily
> firewalled.

If he _does_ have a way to access to the dev machine (i.e. it is isn't
completely firewalled), you can use svnserve from your own account and still
give him readonly access.

Here's how (assuming your system is running at least 1.1 and ssh is available):

1) Force readonly access to the repository by setting the following in
svnserve.conf:

        auth-access=read

and adding your friend's name to the passwd file (with a null passwd).

2) Add your friend's public key to your .ssh/authorized_keys file in a line that
looks like this:

command="svnserve --tunnel --tunnel-user friend" ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1...key...

(you may need to also use the --root option to point the svnserve to the local
repository). This will allow your friend to login _as you_ but only to be able
to read the repository. Note that he have to use something like the following
lines to connect to the repository:

export SVN_SSH='ssh -l youruser'
svn ls svn+ssh://yourhost/repos/project

You now won't be able to use svn+ssh:// yourself (since you've now made all
access via svnserve be readonly), but I don't think that is a problem for you,
since you can access it using file://.

The other way to do this is to use SVK locally, and push the project changes to
a remote repository on your friend's system. I won't go over that method in
detail unless that seems practical...

John

p.s. why isn't this documented in the FAQ or better yet in Chapter 6? Are
patches welcome to add this?

-- 
John Peacock
Director of Information Research and Technology
Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group
4720 Boston Way
Lanham, MD 20706
301-459-3366 x.5010
fax 301-429-5747
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscribe@subversion.tigris.org
For additional commands, e-mail: dev-help@subversion.tigris.org