Instead, we will add subversion to xinetd. The benefit of this is that subversion is only running when we need access to the repository rather than running all the time. By default, subversion is not set up in xinetd, so the following is how I set it up:

First make sure that xinetd is installed.

# yum install xinetd

Next we want to add the following to our /etc/xinetd.d/svnserve

# default: off
# description: svnserve is the server part of Subversion.
service svn
{
  disable = no
  port = 3690
  socket_type = stream
  protocol = tcp
  wait = no
  user = root
  server = /usr/bin/svnserve
  server_args = -i -r /svn
}

Finally, lets restart xinetd:

/etc/init.d/xinetd restart

Now xinetd will start the subversion repository server every time a subversion request is made.

Here was my process.

# yum install subversion

Ok, that was pretty easy. I now have subversion installed on my system; both from a client and user’s perspective. Next I need to create a subversion repository location on my disk (/svn can be replaced with any location on your server).

# svnadmin create /svn

In /svn/conf/passwd add the following (it is in plaintext, but I am sure there is an encrypted solution):

[users]
achristopher = some secret, yet plaintext password

In the /svn/conf/svnserve.conf, you should set the following:

[general]
anon-access = read
auth-access = write

realm = Test Repo

There, our subversion repository has been set up. Now all we have to do is start the subversion daemon.

# svnserv -r /svn -d

We can test the subversion repo:

# mkdir /tmp/test

# svnlook tree /svn
/
svn/
test/

We have just added a directory to our subversion repository. Now lets checkout this project, and get to work:

# rm -Rf /tmp/test
# svn checkout svn://localhost/svn/test
Checked out revision 1.


I cheated a little there, because I had entered my password before I created this posting, so you can expect to see something like the following:

Authentication realm: Test Repo
Password for 'achristopher':

Just enter your password (the one entered in plain text above) and continue working.

To follow: How to set subversion to work with xinetd (it isnt that exciting, but definitely new post worthy).