Learning is an Art

This article covers how to setup domain authentication for Subversion with Apache using mod_auth_sspi , I am running Apache 2.2 and Subversion 1.5. First of all you need to get SSPI module from its new home at sourceforge , module can be directly downloaded from here. Once you have downloaded the module extract using some zip utility there will be a bin folder inside the extracted folder and inside bin folder there will a file named mod_auth_sspi.so take this file and drop it in Apache’s modules folder.

Once you are done with above steps we now need to modify Apache’s httpd.conf to include the domain authentication for our Subversion repository make changes to httpd.conf as shown below,  first we need to ensure that we have required modules loaded

To mod_dav_svn to work you need to uncomment the line which loads mod_dav module Apache look for it and uncomment if its commented.

Now the real magic configuration starts which will enable us to authenticate Subversion users against AD domains make changes in httpd.conf as shown below

Once done with above changes save the file and restart Apache and try accessing the URL http://<yourservername>/svn/myrepo you will be prompted for authentication saying “Subversion Domain” enter your domain name without domain as we have SSPIOmitDomain On and based on Subversion authorization file i.e authz in our scenario you will be able to see repository or you will get forbidden error.

We are done with setting up domain authentication, in-case you face any problem with above settings feel free to write to me.

LoadModule sspi_auth_module   modules/mod_auth_sspi.so
LoadModule dav_svn_module     modules/mod_dav_svn.so
LoadModule authz_svn_module   modules/mod_authz_svn.so

Yeah you heard me right today Atlassian JIRA 4.0 was officially released after doing many beta’s and release candidate…I was expecting that it will take people with a storm with opensocial gadget JQL and many other improvements yes it did took people with storm but for some other reasons and the reason was its licensing policy you can find details of same here and my favourite one is there reason of changing the licensing that’s really cool and pretty lame at the same time for reasons of increasing the licensing cost or changing it all together.

I really doubt the fact that any hundred people company will really like to pay $4000 JIRA and the biggest one is the Enterprise license now costs you double that is $8000 and the cherry one the cake is licensing is now based on number of active named users that means that if you have 100 users and you are now 101 ; you need to run behind Atlassian to upgrade your licenses.

I want to write more on this but may be some other lets wait and watch for reactions from other people; I will be back on this topic with more detailed analysis of pros and cons of same this was just an initial outburst.

I have been fiddling around with Apache for quite sometime now on Ubuntu and there were few questions which used to come to my mind as novice user initially like how do i install apache on first place, where are Apache logs, where are Apache conf files located, how do I add new site to Apache server, stopping and restarting the server so I thought that I would some up answer to all these question at a single place for my own future reference and for the help of my readers.

So first things first I will start with how to install apache here apt-get comes to your rescue and thanks to Ubuntu archives all you need to give simple on liner as shown below

So now that we are done with installation lets move on other things like for troubleshooting you need to know where are apache logs, apache logs can be found at below mentioned path here you can find access logs as well as error logs

we also need to know where are configuration related files to our web server for that we need to look at path mentioned below here you will find apache2.conf, httpd.conf, ports.conf and other configuration related files how to modify and update them is beyond the scope of this nifty article

Moving on to next FAQ this one is my favourite now that I have setup apache how do I go about hosting my site thats the whole purpose for you following along this article, all you need to do is follow the sequence mentioned below

Create a file mysite or what ever name you want to give and add configuration related to your site in this file

you are done with setting up your site.

Last of these faq’s is how do I start and stop the server for doing this all you need to know about is apache2ctl utility and you can start stop using it pretty easily

We are done with the faq’s which were in mind and I will keep on updating this list in future as and when things come to my mind. In next article I would covering how to use apache to host Subversion repositories along with domain authentication so stay tuned.

/etc/apache2/conf.d/