We use Plesk 8.6, although I’ve set this scenario up in 9.x as well. In the templates below, substitute for the appropriate values in your situation. This recipe assumes you are dedicating a domain for your subversion repositories.

You should already have loaded the packages for both subversion and Apache subversion modules on your platform. For debian-based distributions like Ubuntu, this would be “subversion” and “libapache2-svn”.

Review the module configuration file and comment out everything (/etc/apache2/mods-available/dav_svn.conf).

Enable the Apache svn module. For debian-based distributions:
a2enmod dav_svn

You should already have a domain configured in Plesk, say svn.example.com. Avoid using the subdomains feature, if possible, because subdomains are not “first class citizens” in the Plesk world. You can’t easily configure protected directories, disable PHP Safe Mode, etc.

Set both HTTP and HTTPS to use the same directory. Protect the domain with its own certificate, either signed by a valid certificate authority or self-signed.

Using Plesk’s Protected Directories feature, setup the root (/) as protected for both Non-SSL and SSL. Create separate web users for each SVN account.

Create a “fakeroot” environment for Apache.

cd /var/www/vhosts//httpdocs
mkdir fakeroot
touch fakeroot/index.html
chown -R :psacln fakeroot

Create a subversion repository.

mkdir -p svn/
svnadmin create
chown -R www-data:www-data svn
chmod -R g+rws svn

Create an SVN access file to delineate user permissions for each repository. Since the filename begins with .ht, default Apache rules prevent it from being served to visitors. The usernames should exactly match the web users you created earlier in Plesk.

/var/www/vhosts//httpdocs/.htaccess_svn
# Subversion Authorization File

[groups]
developers = , ,
testers = ,

# Give “read only” access to everyone
# for the unnamed “root” repository
[/]
@developers = r
@testers = r

# Give read/write access to developers,
# read only to testers
#
#[:/]
@developers = rw
@testers = r

chown :psacln .htaccess_svn
chmod ugo+r .htaccess_svn

Create custom Apache configuration files for the domain.

/var/www/vhosts//conf/vhost.conf:

## Force all connections to use HTTPS
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI}

/var/www/vhosts//conf/vhost_ssl.conf:
DocumentRoot /var/www/vhosts//httpdocs/fakeroot

<Directory /var/www/vhosts//httpdocs/fakeroot>
Allow from All
Deny from None
Order Allow,Deny

DAV svn
SVNParentPath /var/www/vhosts//httpdocs/svn/
AuthzSVNAccessFile /var/www/vhosts//httpdocs/.htaccess_svn

Inform Plesk of the custom configuration files, test the configuration, then reload Apache.

/usr/local/psa/admin/sbin/websrvmng –reconfigure-vhost –vhost-name=
apache2ctl configtest
apache2ctl graceful

That’s it. You’re now ready to rock & roll. The subversion repositories, accounts, and permissions are properly handed by Plesk’s backup & migration systems.

And yeah, few typos, but I too was following the instructions at 3am, and I think weary minds think alike. The SERVER HTTPD RESTART typo caught me off guard. I copied and pasted it and didn’t know wth was wrong. Should be service. Doh

One other thing, I couldn’t get SVNParentPath to work (as some people in the comments suggested), I had to use SVNPath, and only have one svn repository. Svnparant would work, but sometimes would get a permision denied to commit. Stilldon’t understand why it was just sometimes. No problems was just SVNPath

Should mention that you only have reset Plesk on FIRST time you add the vhost.conf to the domain/subdomain. It merges it into the main http.conf then after that when make a change can restart apache only to get the new changes.

to: Daniel Sydnes

can you share your steps you were using to achieve this setup ?

what version of plesk are you running?

thanks !

/var/www/vhosts//httpsdocs/svn

In the virtual host’s vhost.conf, we added the svn and authz declarations. You can also do this in the appended apache conf file for svn, depending on your particular Linux distribution.

We then configured svn as a protected directory and configured the vhost.conf appropriately.

This has some benefits, as users & passwords can be updated through the Plesk control panel. Since svn is within the Plesk virtual host container, it gets backed up nightly and can be easily migrated with the domain.

Great job, thanks!

b

I was using the mutple repo setup on plesk (knownhost), and found I have to use (in vhost.conf)

SVNParentPath /var/svnrepos

Instead of Svnpath

to avoid “Could not open the requested SVN filesystem”

You should update the command: #yum mod_dav_svn
it should be: #yum install mod_dav_svn

cheers,

instead (assuming you’ve already executed the commands indicated in this tutorial):

chown -R apache.apache /var/svnrepo
chmod o-rwx /var/svnrepo