TotoiseSVN and Apache

[C. Michael Pilato]

On 11/04/2010 06:59 PM, Karl Hewitt wrote:
> We are about to implement Subversion and I’m planning the architecture. 
> Am I correct in believing that we can run both svnserver ó TortoiseSVN
> and Apache ó Broswer access?
> 
> What I am looking to achieve is to give regular users (developers, BA’s,
> etc) the flexibility of the Windows Shell extension approach of
> TortoiseSVN and to allow irregular users to still have access without a
> software install on their client.

Yes, people do this all the time.  Though, you shouldn't need 'svnserve' at
all.  Just use Apache and enabled Autoversioning.  Autoversioning lets those
"irregular users" access the repository's latest contents as a DAV share (a
remote filesystem).  Power users can use TortoiseSVN (or Subclipse, or
AnkhSVN, or the command-line client, or ...) for the full version control
treatment.

> Also am I correct in thinking that with the Apache approach we could put
> a link on our Intranet to a given document (e.g. a help file) and point
> that link to the HEAD resulting in users always getting the latest version?

Yup.

By way of example, the source code for this book can be accessed *directly
from the Subversion server* via this URL:

    http://svnbook.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/

Give it a look.

For kicks, notice what happens when you visit the URL of our webpage as it
sits in that Subversion repository:

    http://svnbook.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/www/index.en.html

I bet you can't even tell that it's being served *directly from Subversion*
rather than from some webserver's document root.

-- 
C. Michael Pilato <cmpilato at red-bean.com> | http://cmpilato.blogspot.com/