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<h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a id="svn.serverconfig.overview"></a>Overview</h2>
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<p>Subversion was designed with an abstract repository access layer.
This means that a repository can be programmatically accessed by
any sort of server process, and the client <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">repository
access</span>”</span> API allows programmers to write plug-ins that
speak relevant network protocols. In theory, Subversion can use
an infinite number of network implementations. In practice,
there are only two Subversion servers in widespread use today.</p>
<p>Apache is an extremely popular web server; using the
<span class="command"><strong>mod_dav_svn</strong></span> module, Apache can access a
repository and make it available to clients via the
WebDAV/DeltaV protocol, which is an extension of HTTP. Because
Apache is an extremely extensible server, it provides a number
of features <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">for free,</span>”</span> such as encrypted SSL
communication, logging, integration with a number of third-party
authentication systems, and limited built-in web browsing of
repositories.</p>
<p>In the other corner is <span class="command"><strong>svnserve</strong></span>: a small,
lightweight server program that speaks a custom protocol with
clients. Because its protocol is explicitly designed for
Subversion and is stateful (unlike HTTP), it provides
significantly faster network operations—but at the cost of
some features as well. While it can use SASL to provide a
variety of authentication and encryption options, it has no
logging or built-in web browsing. It is, however, extremely
easy to set up and is often the best option for small teams just
starting out with Subversion.</p>
<p>The network protocol which <span class="command"><strong>svnserve</strong></span>
speaks may also be tunneled over an SSH connection. This
deployment option for <span class="command"><strong>svnserve</strong></span> differs quite
a bit in features from a traditional <span class="command"><strong>svnserve</strong></span>
deployment. SSH is used to encrypt all communication. SSH is
also used exclusively to authenticate, so real system accounts
are required on the server host (unlike
vanilla <span class="command"><strong>svnserve</strong></span>, which has its own private
user accounts). Finally, because this setup requires that each
user spawn a private, temporary <span class="command"><strong>svnserve</strong></span>
process, it's equivalent (from a permissions point of view) to
allowing a group of local users to all access the repository
via <code class="literal">file://</code> URLs. Path-based access control
has no meaning, since each user is accessing the repository
database files directly.</p>
<p><a class="xref" href="svn.serverconfig.overview.html#svn.serverconfig.overview.tbl-1" title="Table 6.1. Comparison of subversion server options">Table 6.1, “Comparison of subversion server options”</a> provides a
quick summary of the three typical server deployments.</p>
<div class="table">
<a id="svn.serverconfig.overview.tbl-1"></a>
<p class="title">
<strong>Table 6.1. Comparison of subversion server options</strong>
</p>
<div class="table-contents">
<table summary="Comparison of subversion server options" border="1">
<colgroup>
<col />
<col />
<col />
<col />
</colgroup>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Feature</th>
<th>Apache + mod_dav_svn</th>
<th>svnserve</th>
<th>svnserve over SSH</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Authentication options</td>
<td>HTTP Basic or Digest auth, X.509 certificates, LDAP,
NTLM, or any other mechanism available to Apache httpd</td>
<td>CRAM-MD5 by default; LDAP, NTLM, or any other mechanism
available to SASL</td>
<td>SSH</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>User account options</td>
<td>Private <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">users</span>”</span> file, or other mechanisms
available to Apache httpd (LDAP, SQL, etc.)</td>
<td>Private <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">users</span>”</span> file, or other
mechanisms available to SASL (LDAP, SQL, etc.)</td>
<td>System accounts</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Authorization options</td>
<td>Read/write access can be granted over the whole
repository, or specified per path</td>
<td>Read/write access can be granted over the whole
repository, or specified per path</td>
<td>Read/write access only grantable over the whole
repository</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Encryption</td>
<td>Available via optional SSL (https)</td>
<td>Available via optional SASL features</td>
<td>Inherent in SSH connection</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Logging</td>
<td>High-level operational logging of Subversion
operations plus detailed logging at the
per-HTTP-request level</td>
<td>High-level operational logging only</td>
<td>High-level operational logging only</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Interoperability</td>
<td>Accessible by other WebDAV clients</td>
<td>Talks only to svn clients</td>
<td>Talks only to svn clients</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Web viewing</td>
<td>Limited built-in support, or via third-party tools
such as ViewVC</td>
<td>Only via third-party tools such as ViewVC</td>
<td>Only via third-party tools such as ViewVC</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Master-slave server replication</td>
<td>Transparent write-proxying available from slave to
master</td>
<td>Can only create read-only slave servers</td>
<td>Can only create read-only slave servers</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Speed</td>
<td>Somewhat slower</td>
<td>Somewhat faster</td>
<td>Somewhat faster</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Initial setup</td>
<td>Somewhat complex</td>
<td>Extremely simple</td>
<td>Moderately simple</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
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<p>You are reading <em>Version Control with Subversion</em> (for Subversion 1.7), by Ben Collins-Sussman, Brian W. Fitzpatrick, and C. Michael Pilato.<br />
This work is licensed under the <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">Creative Commons Attribution License v2.0</a>.<br />
To submit comments, corrections, or other contributions to the text, please visit <a href="http://www.svnbook.com/">http://www.svnbook.com/</a>.</p>
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