Re: Using svnserve securely

Sebastian Tennant wrote:
> Are you saying that /usr/bin/svn commands, issued locally from within a
> working copy ('svn ci -m "test" test.file' for example) effectively have
> write permission to the repository regardless of the repository
> directory's file permissions?

If the working copy was checked out using file::///path/to/repos (which
is what you were essentially describing), then yes, the clients have to
have write access to the repos. Such users could then type 'rm -rf' and
delete the repository.

>> Just use a server process that owns the repository files exclusively
>> and have the local users access the repo exactly like the remote users
>> - via the server process. Whether you use svnserve or Apache, it is
>> much more robust and secure to have the repository unavailable via
>> file:// completely.
>
> I did consider this but I couldn't think how to actually do it in
> practice. Some (newbie level) examples of how this is achieved would be
> much appreciated.

Have the local users do this:

        $ svn co svn://servername/repos/project/files

instead of this:

        $ svn co file:///path/to/repos/project/files

The remote users will use exactly the same command as the local. There
is no benefit to giving local users access to the repository files
themselves.

John

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe_at_subversion.tigris.org
For additional commands, e-mail: users-help_at_subversion.tigris.org
Received on 2008-02-26 18:01:17 CET