Linux in a Nutshell, 6th Edition

Providing Remote Access: svnserve

svnserve allows access to Subversion repositories using the svn network protocol. You can run svnserve either as a standalone server process, or by having another process--such as inetd, xinetd, or sshd--start it for you.

Once the client has selected 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. The details are provided in Version Control with Subversion.