Managing versions with Apache Subversion (SVN) on Ubuntu 18.04

Apache Subversion, often abbreviated to SVN, is a version control system, distributed as open-source software.

Through Subversion, a complete history of the changes made to the files and folders of your server, managed with the versioning system can be accessed. Moreover, previous versions of your data can also be recovered while protecting their reversibility.

In this guide, you will find all the necessary steps to install and configure a SVN Subversion server on Apache Ubuntu 18.04.

Installing Apache

To access the Subversion server install the Apache web server:

 sudo apt-get update 

 sudo apt-get install apache2 -y 

Check the Apache status with the command:

 sudo systemctl status apache2 

If it is not running, enable it with the following command:

 sudo systemctl start apache2 

Now, enable Apache to start at system boot:

 sudo systemctl enable apache2 

Installing the Subversion server

Use the following command to install Subversion (SVN) and all the necessary dependencies:

 sudo apt-get install subversion libapache2-mod-svn -y 

After its installation, to make sure that the necessary modules are enabled, type:

 sudo a2enmod dav dav_svn authz_svn 

Then, restart the Apache service with the command:

 sudo service apache2 restart 

Configuring Apache Subversion

First, create a folder for all the Subversion files:

 sudo mkdir -p /opt/svn 

Create a repository for SVN (here called ‘tutorial’) and specify the owner:

 sudo svnadmin create /opt/svn/tutorial 

 sudo chown -R /opt/svn/tutorial/ 

 sudo chmod -R 775 /opt/svn/tutorial 

At this point, create the authorized users to act on the repository. To do so, type:

 sudo htpasswd -cm /etc/svn-auth-users user_name  

A password to authenticate the user with the system will be required.

Repeat this step to create all the users who can access the repository.

Now, create a configuration file for the Apache Virtual Host.

Go to the "sites-available" folder of apache2:

 cd /etc/apache2/sites-available/ 

Create a configuration file for the repository:

 sudo nano tutorial.conf 

Paste the following code in the file just created and opened:

        ServerName svn.tutorial.com
       ServerAlias svn.tutorial.com

   DAV svn
    SVNParentPath /opt/svn
    AuthType Basic
    AuthName "Subversion Repository"
    AuthUserFile /etc/svn-auth-users
    Require valid-user

ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/svn.tutorial.com-error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/svn.tutorial.com-access.log combined

Save and exit.

Disable and re-enable the Virtual Host, to make the configuration file just written effective, using the commands:

 sudo a2dissite 000-default.conf 

 sudo a2ensite tutorial.conf 

To verify that everything is written correctly, type the following command and verify that "Syntax OK" is written as the last line.

 sudo apachectl -t 

At this point, restart Apache with the command:

 sudo systemctl restart apache2 

Testing the Subversion server

Open your browser and type in the following URL: http://localhost/svn/tutorial

When required to enter your Username and Password, enter the data used when you created the users.

Go to the terminal and create a first project by typing:

 svn mkdir file:///opt/svn/tutorial/project_name -m "added project_name repository" 

The "project_name" chosen for this tutorial is "Project".

Inside the project, create the folders where to store the different files with the following command:

 sudo svn mkdir file:///opt/svn/tutorial/project_name/folder_name -m "added folder_name to project_name" 

To delete a folder or a project, use the following commands:

• Folder:

   svn delete file:///opt/svn/tutorial/project_name/folder_name -m "delete folder_name folder" 

• Project:

   svn delete file:///opt/svn/tutorial/project_name -m "delete project_name repository" 

Setting up Automatic Backups

Create a folder where to make backups:

 sudo mkdir -p /etc/backups 

Enter root mode and add a rule to the Crontab:

 sudo su - 

 crontab -e 

Add the following rule to Crontab to make backups run every day at midnight:

 0 0 * * *  svnadmin dump /opt/svn/tutorial> /etc/backups/backup-$(date +%Y%m%d).dump 

A manual backup can also be performed, but to avoid file conflicts with the same name, rename the backup file. To have this backup version, type:

 svnadmin dump /opt/svn/tutorial > /etc/backups/manual_backup_name.dump 

Restoring a Repository from Backup

To restore a previous backup, create a new Repository and indicate it as where to restore the desired backup.

 svnadmin create /opt/svn/restored_repository 

 svnadmin load /opt/svn/restored_repository < /etc/backups/svn_backup_name.dump