HowTo to handle SVN repositories creation and access control with Redmine (part 2)¶

• Table of contents
• HowTo to handle SVN repositories creation and access control with Redmine (part 2)
  • How to automatically update the url of your new repositories in redMine with reposman ?
  • What if you want to allow redMine to browse private repository ?
    • redMine and svn are on the same server
    • redMine and svn aren't on the same server
  • Web Service and Security

If you haven't configure redMine and subversion integration, begin with the first part :
HowTo to handle SVN repositories creation and access control with Redmine

Be careful, the following recipes only work with a fairly recent
redmine/reposman.rb (Rev. 860 and later). They won't work with the
perl version of reposman.

How to automatically update the url of your new repositories in
redMine with reposman ?¶

You can do that by using the --url argument.

ruby ./reposman.rb --redmine-host localhost:3000 --svn-dir /var/svn \
                   --url file:///var/svn/

reposman will return to redMine the url of your repository (the url
argument plus the idendified)

Next time you create a project with a repository, reposman will
informe redMine that's done and redMine will save the new repository
information returned by reposman.

What if you want to allow redMine to browse private repository ?¶

The previous recipes allow you to create repository on the fly and
anonymous browsing. But, if your project is private or if the project
isn't on the same server, you won't be able to browse it in redMine.

redMine and svn are on the same server¶

If your reposities and redmine are on the same server, you just need
to use the --url option like in the previous item to register the
repository and the --owner argument to set the repository owner to the
mongrel/apache user so that it can parse files.

ruby ./reposman.rb --redmine-host localhost:3000 --svn-dir /var/svn \
                   --url file:///var/svn/ --owner MONGREL_USER

BUT, you won't be able to separate repositories and redMine in the
future (in fact you will be but you need to change the database
manually and that's bad). A better way to do this, if you think you
will need to separate those two servers one day, is to do like you
already have two servers. To do this, read the next recipe.

redMine and svn aren't on the same server¶

There's more than one way to do this, one could be to use a specific
user to browse the repository with svnserve or svn+ssh but I don't
like this way (don't ask why). Another way is to add a third
access way (we already have svn+ssh for registered users and svnserve
for anonymous users).

In the following, the redmine server is known as redmine.my.domain and
the svn as svn.my.domain. You need to have apache/apache2 and mod_dav_svn on
the svn server.

1. configure your apache to serve the svn repository just for the redmine server

Just add something like that in your apache.conf or in a file in the
directory /etc/apache/conf.d :

   LoadModule dav_svn_module /usr/lib/apache2/modules/mod_dav_svn.so
   <Location /svn>
   DAV svn
   # this must be the path you give to reposman with -s,--svn-dir argument
   SVNParentPath "/var/svn" 
   Order allow,deny
   Allow from ip.of.my.redmine.server
   </Location>

Verify you can access it from your redMine server.

2. change your reposman cron by adding the --owner argument with the apache user :

ruby ./reposman.rb --redmine-host http://redmine.my.domain/ --svn-dir /var/svn
                   --url http://svn.my.domain/svn/ --owner APACHE_USER

Web Service and Security¶

For the moment, the WS is open to everybody and you surely don't want
that someone register project for you. You can block access to the WS
with apache/mongrel (if you don't use apache, I let you do your
homework...) with the Location apache directive like this :

<VirtualHost *:80>
   ServerName redmine.my.domain
   ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost

   <Location /sys>
      Order allow,deny
      Allow from ip.of.my.svn.server
   </Location>

   ProxyPass / http://localhost:3000/
   ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:3000/
</VirtualHost>