Using Subversion Repository as WebShare

This article assumes that you have installed and running Apache Server 2.0.59 and Apache is hosting your Subversion 1.4.4 repositories on windows XP machine. Might work with other versions and other Operating Systems also but same is not tested as far as I am concerned.

Step1: Changes in Apache httpd.conf

Add SVNAutoversioning directive in your Apache’s configuration file as shown below, which can be found in conf directory Apache installation.

When SVNAutoversioning is active, write requests from WebDAV clients result in automatic commits. A generic log message is auto-generated and attached to each revision. Before activating this feature, however, understand what you’re getting into. WebDAV clients tend to do many write requests, resulting in a huge number of automatically committed revisions. For example, when saving data, many clients will do a

of a 0-byte file (as a way of reserving a name) followed by another

with the real file data. The single file-write results in two separate commits. Also consider that many applications auto-save every few minutes, resulting in even more commits.

If you have a post-commit hook program that sends email or generates RSS feeds, you may want to disable email and feed generation either altogether, or on certain sections of the repository.

<Location /repos>

DAV svn

SVNPath /path/to/repository

SVNAutoversioning on

ModMimeUsePathInfo on

</Location>

ModMimeUsePathInfo allows

which is Apache’s module to attempt automatic deduction of the mime-type on new files that enter the repository via autoversioning. The module looks at the file’s named extension and possibly the contents as well; if the file matches some common patterns, then the the file’s

property will be set automatically. For this you will have to uncomment or add the load module directive for mod_mime.

LoadModule mime_module modules/mod_mime.so

Make sure that this line is present in load module section of httpd.conf and uncommented.

Now your Apache is set to accept DeltaV or WebDAV Clients.

Step2: Creating Network Share

Create network share i.e. a web share on some client machine or you can do it on same machine.

Go to My Network places -> add network place

You will see add a network place wizard click on next, than you will ask where you want to create this network place click next.

You will see a window as shown below asking you to enter Internet or network address

Enter http path to your repository, please don’t forget to add port number to it. e.g. http://myserver/repos and click next than you will be asked for authentication enter your credentials for repository access and than it will ask you the name of your network share enter any name you want.

Your repository is mounted as network or Web Share.

Now you can edit your files and cross check your repositories log messages to see auto commits and auto generated log messages. Which say’s commit by a non DeltaV client.

But before really using it you should make sure that you should know what you are doing. As far as I see this can be of great help to people who are non-developer and want to manage documentations with customers and among there team with actually needing a Subversion client lie Tortoise, many people think it’s a killer feature and I am no exception to it but the bottom line is that it comes at cost and you should know what the cost is and you are willing to pay it.