Subversion Repository

I’ve been working on a number of personal projects lately and need a reliable, fast and possibly multi-user source control. There are many of options available, but for me VS.NET integration is a must. Without focusing too much on my rational for choosing SVN, there are two fairly mature and rich VS.NET providers; AnkhSVN and VisualSVN. I use VisualSVN and it rocks.

Follows is the fastest path to getting a repository up and running over the native SVN protocol (which by default listens on port 3690).

1. Download pre-built binaries from CollabNet (I had TortoiseSVN compatibility issues with other distributions such as SlikSVN).
2. Create the repository: svnadmin create “c:\svn\repository”
3. Edit conf/snvserve.conf. Uncomment the lines (anon-access = read, auth-access = write, password-db = passwd)
4. Edit conf/passwd. Register users and their passwords here.
5. Register Windows services (daemon): sc create svnserver binpath= "C:\Program Files (x86)\CollabNet\Subversion Server\svnserve.exe --service -r c:\svn\repository"
   displayname= "Subversion" depend= Tcpip start= auto

That’s it! Just connect to svn://localhost using TortoiseSVN and/or the other VS.NET providers. Remember to open up port 3690 to make the repository available over a network.

I find setting up the TTB (tags/trunk/branches) style structure initially pays off downstream, when activity like tagging or branching starts taking place.