Team System

Setting up a Subversion Server under Windows

I talked a little bit about what Subversion is in my previous post. Now, let's get it set it up in Windows.

Luckily for us, Joe White has done most of the work already; he has a tremendously helpful post that documents how to set up Subversion. I'll see if I can streamline his excellent post a bit further, and illustrate it with screenshots.

A) Download Subversion

You'll need the latest version of..

• the Windows binaries
• the "run Subversion as a windows service" wrapper
• the TortoiseSVN shell integration utility

B) Install Subversion

1. Unzip the Windows binaries to a folder of your choice. I chose c:\program files\subversion\ as my path.
   
2. Now, add the subversion binaries to the path environment variable for the machine. I used %programfiles%\subversion\bin\
   
   
3. You'll also need another environment variable, SVN_EDITOR, set to the text editor of your choice. I used c:\windows\notepad.exe
   

C) Create a Repository

1. Open a command prompt and type

   svnadmin create "c:\Documents and Settings\Subversion Repository"

2. Navigate to the folder we just created. Within that folder, uncomment the following lines in the /conf/svnserve.conf file:

   [general]
   anon-access = read
   auth-access = write
   password-db = passwd
   

   Next, uncomment these lines in the /conf/passwd file:

   [users]
   harry = harryssecret
   sally = sallyssecret

D) Verify that everything is working

1. Start the subversion server by issuing this command in the command window:

   svnserve --daemon --root "C:\Documents and Settings\Subversion Repository"
   

2. Create a project by opening a second command window and entering this command:

   svn mkdir svn://localhost/myproject
   

   It's a standard Subversion convention to have three folders at the root of a project:

   /trunk
   /branches
   /tags
   

3. At this point, Notepad should launch:

   

   Enter any comment you want at the top of the file, then save and exit.

4. You'll now be prompted for credentials. In my case I was prompted for the administrator credentials as well:

   Authentication realm:  0f1a8b11-d50b-344d-9dc7-0d9ba12e22df
   Password for 'Administrator': *********
   Authentication realm:  0f1a8b11-d50b-344d-9dc7-0d9ba12e22df
   Username: sally
   Password for 'sally': ************
   
   Committed revision 1.
   

   Congratulations! You just checked a change into Subversion!

E) Start the server as a service

1. Stop the existing command window that's running svnserve by pressing CTRL+C.
   
2. Copy the file SVNService.exe from the zip file of the same name to the subversion\bin folder.
   
3. Install the service by issuing the following commands:

   svnservice -install --daemon --root "C:\Documents and Settings\Subversion Repository"
   sc config svnservice start= auto
   net start svnservice

4. Test the new service by listing all the files in the repository:

   svn ls svn://localhost/
   

   You should see the single project we created earlier, myproject/

F) Set up the shell extension

1. Run the TortoiseSVN installer. It will tell you to restart, but you don't need to.
   
2. Create a project folder somewhere on your hard drive. Right click in that folder and select "SVN Checkout..."
   
   
   
   type svn://localhost/myproject/ for the repository URL and click OK.
   
   
   

3. Create a new file in that directory. Right click the file and select "TortoiseSVN, Add"
   
   
   

4. The file hasn't actually been checked in yet. Subversion batches any changes and commits them as one atomic operation. To send all your changes to the server, right click and select "SVN Commit":
   
   
   
   

And we're done! You now have a networked Subversion server and client set up on your machine. Note that the default port for svnserve is 3690.

For more tips on using subversion, take a look at the free O'Reilly Subversion book.