Re: svn ls - could it list non repo directories?

Jeff Cave wrote:
> Unfortunately, installing a web server other than IIS is not an option. Not
> my call.

This is unfortunate because you would be much more likely to be able to make a
sane structure with Apache/DAV than with svnserve. Perhaps if you pitched it as
a dedicated application server, and configured it to _only_ serve repositories?

Among the many reasons it would be easier with Apache is that you could have
many virtual servers hosted on a single IP address, and each one could host
multiple repositories (using SVNParentPath). Additionally, the granularity of
security within svnserve is very coarse, whereas you can get very creative with
security within Apache (this should be a great concern if you are doing client
work with accounting information). You can even authenticate users against
external user directories, like Active Directory or NT Domains using Apache.

> In terms of svn actually knowing what the Grandparentpath is, its not really
> a big issue from the user standpoint. I don't actually want it to do anything
> with the directory except report that it is there when I am above it:

svnserve doesn't understand anything about the filesystem and is unlikely to
gain any code to permit that in the future. All it does is make a call to
BerkeleyDB to open a repository; if you give it a path that isn't part of a
repository, it will just throw an error (as you see). Adding any code to
svnserve to do otherwise would be bad from a security standpoint, if for no
other reason.

> This would bring me closer to what I am looking for, but suffers from most of
> the same problems.
>
> An user must know the url/ip of a company to access the repo (as opposed to
> the directory name). And then still have to know the project directory name.

No, what I was suggesting is that you establish a policy that the company
repositories have a consistent naming convention:

        svn-[companyname].domain.tld

and then you create hostnames in the DNS which correspond to each repository
(again, with svnserve this would be individual IP's, with Apache it could all be
bound to a single IP).

HTH

John

-- 
John Peacock
Director of Information Research and Technology
Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group
4501 Forbes Boulevard
Suite H
Lanham, MD  20706
301-459-3366 x.5010
fax 301-429-5748
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