If you have not created any Subversion repositories yet, you can create one with svnadmin:

  $ svnadmin create ~/my-repository

If you do not already have your Apache server instance set up, follow these steps and pass the --enable-dav option to ./configure. Rebuild and reinstall your Apache server as explained in the guide.

Grab the latest stable Subversion source release, unpack it to some temporary location and compile subversion using the following ./configure options:

  $ mkdir $HOME/subversion
  $ tar -xzvf subversion-X.X.X.tar.gz
  $ cd subversion-X.X.X
  $ ./configure --prefix=$HOME/subversion --with-apxs=$HOME/apache/bin/apxs \
                --with-berkeley-db=/usr/local
  $ make && make install

You can then delete the ~/subversion-X.X.X and ~/subversion directories (the latter is not needed since we are only using the Apache modules).

Make sure the following LoadModule statements appear in the Dynamic Shared Object (DSO) Support section of your Apache configuration file. The subversion installation should have automatically added the dav_svn_module and authz_svn_module lines.

  LoadModule dav_module		modules/mod_dav.so
  LoadModule dav_svn_module     modules/mod_dav_svn.so
  #LoadModule authz_svn_module   modules/mod_authz_svn.so

Uncomment the authz_svn_module line if you wish to use fine-grained permissions (see below).

Finally, you can configure the access to the repositories. You have the choice to either add one <Location> section per repository, or to have a single <Location> specifying some directory containing all repositories and use fine-grained permission controls (see below).

Typically, you will want to use password authentication, but other methods are supported.

The following entry would give read-only access to everyone, and write access to users in the given AuthUserFile. You can use the htpasswd utility to create or update that file.

  <Location /myproject>
    DAV svn
    SVNPath /path/to/myproject
    AuthType Basic
    AuthName "My project"
    AuthUserFile /path/to/authfile
    Order deny,allow
    <LimitExcept GET PROPFIND OPTIONS REPORT>
      Require valid-user
    </LimitExcept>
  </Location>

The following entry would give read/write access to users in the AuthUserFile, and no access to anyone else.

<Location /myproject>
  DAV svn
  SVNPath /path/to/myproject
  AuthType Basic
  AuthName "My project"
  AuthUserFile /path/to/authfile
  Order deny,allow
  Require valid-user
</Location>

Using either a remote Subversion client or the standard svn command from your shell, you can generate your working copy of the repository with the checkout command. If you are accessing public data over a read-only account, you can use a standard http URL:

  $ svn co http://your-domain/myproject/

If you are accessing private data or using a read/write account, make sure to use an https URL:

  $ svn co https://your-domain/myproject/

The contents of public repositories are also accessible from a web browser. Keep in mind that search engines will try to index any public data, so you may want to use a robots.txt file.

Access controls for items within a repository can be configured using the mod_authz_svn module. Uncomment its LoadModule statement in your Apache configuration and edit your <Location> entry:

  <Location /repos>
    DAV svn
    SVNPath /path/to/repos
            
    # Access Control via the authz module.
    AuthzSVNAccessFile /path/to/accessfile                 
            
    # Anonymous access is allowed. Prompt as needed.
    Satisfy Any
    Require valid-user
            
    AuthType Basic
    AuthName "Subversion repository"
    AuthUserFile /path/to/authfile                  
  </Location>

Create the file specified in AuthzSVNAccessFile. This file will contain the access control information:

  [/]              # Allow the root of the repository to be browseable by all.
  * = r	           # Anonymous read access is allowed by all users.
  
  [/project1]      # Directory relative to /path/to/repos.
  * = r            # Everyone can read.
  johnny = rw      # User can read and write.
  rotten = rw
  
  [/project2]
  sid = rw
  vicious = rw