So I just set up subversion on my gentoo slice. I'm using the custom  
svnserve provided with subversion for now because it seemed quickest  
and easiest. This problem is probably not specific to this choice of  
server though.
So in gentoo, svnserve runs as user:group apache:apache, as can be  
seen in /etc/init.d/svnserve (or overridden in /etc/conf.d/svnserve).  
However, when I create a repository using sudo svnadmin create /var/ 
svn/whatever, the repository gets created with root:root permissions.  
Thus when I tried to do a commit, I get an error like "Can't create  
directory '/var/svn/whatever/db/transactions/0-1.txn': Permission  
denied" (though I can checkout the repository just fine.  I guess the  
repository has world read access but only root write access). I can  
fix this either by setting svnserve to run as root, or else (which is  
preferable) by changing the permissions (chown -R apache:apache /var/ 
svn/whatever). I tried both but and went with the latter and now it  
works fine.
Since I prefer the second method (I don't want svnserve to run as  
root unless it has to, and I probably will eventually want to use  
apache instead of svnserve), it would be highly desirable to get  
svnadmin to create repositories owned by apache by default.  Does  
svnadmin have any smartness about the permissions and ownerships of  
the repository files it creates?
I've just searched through the archives of this mailing list, and  
I've seen a few short discussions about this error, and the only  
solution seems to be some chowning (perhaps followed by some  
chmodding).  Surprisingly, the subversion books seems not to breath a  
word about file ownership in the chapter about creating repositories.
Anyway, I'd very much like svnadmin to be smart about this.  Is it?   
Or do I just have to resign myself to monkeying with permissions  
every time I create a repository?
TIA
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Received on Fri Mar 30 07:50:20 2007