setting up a subversion repository on a remote server

Question

I have ssh access to a webserver which has svn. I'm trying to set up a repository via the ssh but I'm not completely sure how. The server is running parallels plesk if that makes a difference.

My home directory is as follows:

anon_ftp  cgi-bin  error_docs  httpsdocs  private     subdomains  
bin       conf     httpdocs    pd         statistics  web_users

should I create the repository in https docs, like svnadmin create httpsdocs/svn? Would this allow me to check out the repository like this svn checkout https://domain.com:443/svn/blah/trunk? Or is there some intermediate step to getting the repository to an accessible state?

How do I set up users and groups etc in the repository? Previously I have only used VisualSVN server on my laptop, which set up the server for me and made it really easy to configure the repository...

Can anyone help?

Solution

Do you have DAV enabled on the server? If not (or if it's not an option), then you won't be able to access the repo via http/https. That said, unless there's a specific reason you'd need to access it via http, you have the option of using svn+ssh. Here's a quick-n-dirty process:

• On the server (via ssh): $ svnadmin create /path/to/repo
• From your client: $ svn checkout svn+ssh://user@hostname:/path/to/repo

Comments

[Carson Myers]

I'm glad there's a workaround. But how do I check for DAV?

[EEAA]

Are you in control of the server or is it a shared server? If it's under your control, then it's probably not enabled. If shared, you'll need to talk with your hosting company.

[Carson Myers]

It's my sort-of-boss's server, I have access to the plesk panel

[EEAA]

I'm not familiar with plesk enough to know if it has a way of showing the currently-loaded apache modules. If you have root access on the server, you can run apache2 -M and it'll list the currently loaded modules.