WebSVN with VisualSVN

VisualSVN Server repositories can also be viewed and searched over by a web browser but the amount of information presented is not enough for a serious development work. It is thus esential to have a serious repository browsing abillity which I found with WebSVN.

There are quite a few sites/blogs describing the process but none of them worked 100% for me. So this is my version of installation that worked form me.

Step 1: Instal PHP (requirement for WebSVN).

Usually it is installed to C:\php5 if you're using PHP 5 for instance.

Step 2: Install WebSVN

Download websvn from http://websvn.tigris.org and extract it to C:\Program Files (x86)\VisualSVN Server\htdocs\websvn.

Step 3: Configure WebSVN

Go to C:\Program Files (x86)\VisualSVN Server\htdocs\websvn\include and edit the distconfig.php. The following is essential:

Point it to your cygwin tools and SVN binaries:

  $config->setSVNCommandPath('C:/Program Files/VisualSVN Server/bin');   $config->setDiffPath('C:/cygwin/bin');   $config->setEnscriptPath('C:/cygwin/bin');   $config->setSedPath('C:/cygwin/bin');   $config->setTarPath('C:/cygwin/bin');   $config->setGZipPath('C:/cygwin/bin');   $config->setZipPath('C:/cygwin/bin');

  Setup your repository config: `$config->parentPath('C:\\Repositories');`   Setup your authentication: `$config->useAuthenticationFile('C:/Repositories/authz');`

Note: don't forget to delette the comment in front of the config lines (I know it's stoopid but believe me, it will happen).

Rename distconfig.php to config.php

Step 4: Configure VisualSVN Server

Go to C:\Program Files (x86)\VisualSVN Server\conf or wherever you installed the VisualSVN Server

and open httpd-custom.conf file (typically it is empty). Add the following lines to the file:

#BEGINPHP INTSALLER EDITS   

LoadModule php5_module "c:/php5/php5apache2_2.dll"

AddType application/x-httpd-php .php # configure the path to php.ini

PHPIniDir "C:/php5"

<IfModule dir_module>

DirectoryIndex index.html index.php

</IfModule>

<Location /websvn/>

    Options FollowSymLinks

    AuthType Basic

    AuthName "Subversion Repository"

    Require valid-user

    AuthUserFile "C:/Repositories/htpasswd"

    AuthzSVNAccessFile "C:/Repositories/authz"

    SVNListParentPath on

    SVNParentPath "C:/Repositories/"

</Location>

#BEGINPHP INTSALLER EDITS

This way VisualSVN will not overwrite the PHP settings when you upgrade.

AuthzSVNAccessFile "C:/Repositories/authz"

Using subversion authentication.

SVNParentPath "C:/Repositories/"

Change accordingly to the location of the repositories.

Step 4: Instal Cygwin

In order for WebSVN to function properly you need to install Cygwin. When installing make sure to select the following packages: Diff, Sed, Enscript, Tar, Gzip and Zip. All are not neccessary but you'll lose functionality if you don’t have them. At least you should install Diff, Tar and Gzip. If you want to add aditional package just simply run the Cygwin setup.exe again and choose packages from the list.

Installation procedure:

Install from internet (Next), All users (Next), Local package C:\temp (Next), Direct Connection (Next), Choose download site (Next), Choose packages (Next)...installation...(Finish). That's it.

Restart the VisualSVN Server (in the VisualSVN Server GUI or service itself).

Access the WebSVN on the following URL (change acordignly to your connection specifics): https://localhost:8443/websvn.