Issue - SVN cannot create SASL context

After many hours of apparently pointless googling, I hope to get an
answer here.

I asked a question on unix.stackexchange.com which essentially outlines
my problem:
http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/103714/svn-failing-to-create-sasl-context

Here is the text of that question:

--------------

Trying to execute the command

|svn log svn://[my server address]/path/to/repository
|

nets me the following:

|svn: E170001: Unable to connect to a repository at URL 'svn://[my server address]/path/to/repository'
svn: E170001: Could not create SASL context: generic failure
|

Some quick googling reveals a possiblesolution
<http://forums.cpanel.net/f34/how-do-i-enable-port-linux-38362.html>:

|sudo port activate cyrus-sasl2 @2.1.23_3+kerberos
|

However, before I attempt this, I would like to know a couple things.

 1. What exactly is going on?
 2. What does this command do? How does it fix the problem?

------------------------

As some additional info, I am not using SASL on my server- as far as I
am aware, anyway. The output of "svnserve --version" on the server shows
this:
_________________

svnserve, version 1.6.17 (r1128011)
    compiled Jun 26 2013, 20:44:36

Copyright (C) 2000-2009 CollabNet.
Subversion is open source software, see http://subversion.apache.org/
This product includes software developed by CollabNet
(http://www.Collab.Net/).

The following repository back-end (FS) modules are available:

* fs_base : Module for working with a Berkeley DB repository.
* fs_fs : Module for working with a plain file (FSFS) repository.

Cyrus SASL authentication is available.
____________________

The output of running "svn --version" on my client gets this:

____________________

svn, version 1.7.9 (r1462340)
    compiled Apr 6 2013, 21:23:46

Copyright (C) 2013 The Apache Software Foundation.
This software consists of contributions made by many people; see the NOTICE
file for more information.
Subversion is open source software, see http://subversion.apache.org/

The following repository access (RA) modules are available:

* ra_neon : Module for accessing a repository via WebDAV protocol using
Neon.
   - handles 'http' scheme
   - handles 'https' scheme
* ra_svn : Module for accessing a repository using the svn network protocol.
   - with Cyrus SASL authentication
   - handles 'svn' scheme
* ra_local : Module for accessing a repository on local disk.
   - handles 'file' scheme
* ra_serf : Module for accessing a repository via WebDAV protocol using
serf.
   - handles 'http' scheme
   - handles 'https' scheme
__________________________

Oddly, I can successfully use that command ("svn log svn://[my server
address]/path/to/repository") on another client computer without any
trouble.

I have no idea where exactly to look to find the source of this problem,
or what precisely is causing it. Help is greatly appreciated.

-Cheers,
John
Received on 2013-12-05 07:14:39 CET