svnserve(8) - phpMan

svnserve(8) System Manager's Manual svnserve(8)

NAME
svnserve - Server for the 'svn' repository access method

SYNOPSIS
svnserve [options]

DESCRIPTION
svnserve allows access to Subversion repositories using the svn network protocol. It can
both run as a standalone server process, or it can run out of inetd. You must choose a
mode of operation when you start svnserve. The following options are recognized:

-d, --daemon
Causes svnserve to run in daemon mode. svnserve backgrounds itself and accepts and
serves TCP/IP connections on the svn port (3690, by default).

--listen-port=port
Causes svnserve to listen on port when run in daemon mode.

--listen-host=host
Causes svnserve to listen on the interface specified by host, which may be either a
hostname or an IP address.

--foreground
When used together with -d, this option causes svnserve to stay in the foreground.
This option is mainly useful for debugging.

-i, --inetd
Causes svnserve to use the stdin/stdout file descriptors, as is appropriate for a
daemon running out of inetd.

-h, --help
Displays a usage summary and exits.

--version
Print svnserve's version and the repository filesystem back-end(s) a particular
svnserve supports.

-r root, --root=root
Sets the virtual root for repositories served by svnserve. The pathname in URLs pro-
vided by the client will be interpreted relative to this root, and will not be al-
lowed to escape this root.

-R --read-only
Force all write operations through this svnserve instance to be forbidden, overriding
all other access policy configuration. Do not use this option to set general reposi-
tory access policy - that is what the conf/svnserve.conf repository configuration
file is for. This option should be used only to restrict access via a certain method
of invoking svnserve - for example, to allow write access via SSH, but not via a
svnserve daemon, or to create a restricted SSH key which is only capable of read ac-
cess.

-t, --tunnel
Causes svnserve to run in tunnel mode, which is just like the inetd mode of operation
(serve one connection over stdin/stdout) except that the connection is considered to
be pre-authenticated with the username of the current uid. This flag is selected by
the client when running over a tunnel agent.

--tunnel-user=username
When combined with --tunnel, overrides the pre-authenticated username with the sup-
plied username. This is useful in combination with the ssh authorized_key file's
"command" directive to allow a single system account to be used by multiple commit-
ters, each having a distinct ssh identity.

-T, --threads
When running in daemon mode, causes svnserve to spawn a thread instead of a process
for each connection. The svnserve process still backgrounds itself at startup time.

--config-file=filename
When specified, svnserve reads filename once at program startup and caches the
svnserve configuration. The password and authorization configurations referenced
from filename will be loaded on each connection. svnserve will not read any per-
repository conf/svnserve.conf files when this option is used. See the
svnserve.conf(5) man page for details of the file format for this option.

--pid-file=filename
When specified, svnserve will write its process ID to filename.

-X, --listen-once
Causes svnserve to accept one connection on the svn port, serve it, and exit. This
option is mainly useful for debugging.

Unless the --config-file option was specified on the command line, once the client has se-
lected a repository by transmitting its URL, svnserve reads a file named
conf/svnserve.conf in the repository directory to determine repository-specific settings
such as what authentication database to use and what authorization policies to apply. See
the svnserve.conf(5) man page for details of that file format.