Subversion/Setting up server under Windows

Updated for 1.4.4

Best Documentation is available in the TortoiseSVN Help File. Please install TortoiseSVN and the manual can walk anyone through the installation under Windows.

This article is based on a helpful blog post Setting_up_a_Subversion_Server_under_Windows, which got outdated.

Download

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You don't need to download the "svnservice" wrapper or similar programs anymore because since version ?? Subversion server can be run as a service. For details see [1].

Install server

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1) Unzip Windows binaries, e.g. to c:\Program Files\subversion\

2) Add the path to subversion binaries to the system Path environment variable: %programfiles%\subversion\bin\

 

3) Create SVN_EDITOR environment variable to specify text editor to use:

 

Start the server service

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sc create SVNserve binpath= "c:\Program Files\subversion\bin\svnserve.exe --service --root \"c:\svn_root\"" displayname= "Subversion Repository" depend= Tcpip start= auto

Start the service:

net start SVNserve

Install client

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Run the installer. At the end it asks to restart but it's not necessary.

Create repository

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You can create via the command line or through TortoiseSVN. Repositories can be accessed in various ways. Go to the command prompt and type: "svn --version" to see a list of available methods.

defaults are:

  • ra_dav : Module for accessing a repository via WebDAV (DeltaV) protocol.
 - handles 'http' scheme
 - handles 'https' scheme
  • ra_svn : Module for accessing a repository using the svn network protocol.
 - handles 'svn' scheme
  • ra_local : Module for accessing a repository on local disk.
 - handles 'file' scheme

1a) In the command prompt, run

svnadmin create "c:\svn_root"

1b) Right click in explorer, TortoiseSVN | Create Repository here... obviously, you should create a folder named "svn_root" under c:\

2) Go to the directory you created above, open ./conf/svnserve.conf and uncomment these lines (remove # from the beginning of the line):

[general]
anon-access = read
auth-access = write
password-db = passwd

3) uncomment these lines in ./conf/passwd:

[users]
harry = harryssecret
sally = sallyssecret

5a) create the project for access by svn

svn mkdir svn://localhost/myproject
// the svnserve is listening for connections on svn://localhost and it points to "C:\svn_root\" in this example
// as the sc command written above has that path set
// the repository will have "myproject" as the first folder under the root

5b) create the project for access by local file ( using TortoiseSVN )

Go to Repo-broser[check spelling] and look at: file:///c:\svn_root/
right click and add a folder

Create a project

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1) Create a directory for your working copy. Right-click on it and choose "SVN Checkout..."

2a) Type svn://localhost/myproject/ 2b) Type file:///c:\svn_root/