Version Control with Subversion

This is the Title of the Book, eMatter Edition

Copyright © 2007 O’Reilly & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Chapter 6: Server Configuration

Access Methods” later in this chapter). Here’s a brief overview and comparison of

the two available Subversion servers—as an administrator, it’s up to you to choose

whatever works best for you and your users.

Network Model

This section is a general discussion of how a Subversion client and server interact

with one another, regardless of the network implementation you’re using. After read-

ing, you’ll have a good understanding of how a server can behave and the different

ways in which a client can be configured to respond.

Requests and Responses

The Subversion client spends most of its time managing working copies. When it

needs information from a repository, however, it makes a network request, and the

server responds with an appropriate answer. The details of the network protocol are

hidden from the user; the client attempts to access a URL, and depending on the

URL schema, a particular protocol is used to contact the server (see Chapter 2).

Users can run

svn --version to see which URL schemas and protocols the client

knows how to use.

When the server process receives a client request, it typically demands that the client

identify itself. It issues an authentication challenge to the client, and the client

responds by providing credentials back to the ...