How to Install Subversion Server on Ubuntu 16.04 & 14.

04 LTS
Subversion is an open source version control system. It helps you keep track of a collection of files and
folders. Any time you change, add or delete a file or folder that you manage with Subversion, you
commit these changes to your Subversion repository, which creates a new revision in your repository
reflecting these changes. You can always go back, look at and get the contents of previous revisions.

This article will help you for step by step setup of Subversion (svn) server on Ubuntu 16.04 & 14.04
LTS systems.

1. Install Apache

First you need to install Apache web server to access svn server using http urls. Skip this step if you
already have Apache web server on your system.

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get install apache2

2. Install Subversion

Use following command to install subversion packages and there dependencies. Also install svn
module for Apache libapache2-mod-svn packages on your system..

$ sudo apt-get install subversion libapache2-mod-svn libapache2-svn libsvn-

dev
$ sudo a2enmod dav
$ sudo a2enmod dav_svn
$ sudo service apache2 restart

3. Configure Apache for Subversion

Subversion Apache module package creates an configuration file /etc/apache2/mods-

enabled/dav_svn.conf. You just need to make necessary changes to it.

Alias /svn /var/lib/svn

<Location /svn>
DAV svn
SVNParentPath /var/lib/svn /myrepo

AuthType Basic
AuthName "Subversion Repository"
AuthUserFile /etc/apache2/dav_svn.passwd
</Location>
4. Create First SVN Repository

Use following commands to create your first svn repository with name myrepo.

$ sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/svn/

$ sudo svnadmin create /var/lib/svn/myrepo

$ sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/lib/svn

$ sudo chmod -R 775 /var/lib/svn

5. Create Users for Subversion

Now create first svn user in /etc/apache2/dav_svn.passwd file. These users will use for
authentication of svn repositories for checkout, commit processes.

$ sudo htpasswd -cm /etc/apache2/dav_svn.passwd admin

To create additional users, use following commands.

$ sudo htpasswd -m /etc/apache2/dav_svn.passwd user1

$ sudo htpasswd -m /etc/apache2/dav_svn.passwd user2

6. Access Repository in Browser

Use http urls to access your repository in browser. It will prompt for authentication. Use login
credentials created in Step 5. Change example.com with your system host name, domain name or ip
address.

http://example.com/svn/myrepo/