Open Tech Notes

PROPFIND request failed on ‘/path/to/repo’ and PROPFIND of ‘/path/to/repo’: 301 Moved Permanently

admin — Wed, 07 May 2008 05:31:51 +0000

There are a lot of reasons cause this problem in SVN client. But the problem is in server side.
Here is a comprehensive explain about this issue :
http://www.checkupdown.com/status/E301.html

For my case, whenever I create a folder under /opt/lampp/htdocs and if the name is same with ‘path/to/repo’ , it will cause this error message:

Error: PROPFIND request failed on ‘/reponame’
Error: PROPFIND of ‘/reponame’: 301 Moved Permanently (http://www.vancouvereasy.com)

12:Option expected

admin — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 21:44:32 +0000

This is the only error message I encountered on setting up SVN sever on Windows 2003.

Here is the config file:

### This file controls the configuration of the svnserve daemon, if you
### use it to allow access to this repository. (If you only allow
### access through http: and/or file: URLs, then this file is
### irrelevant.)

### Visit http://subversion.tigris.org/ for more information.

[general]
### These options control access to the repository for unauthenticated
### and authenticated users. Valid values are "write", "read",
### and "none". The sample settings below are the defaults.
anon-access=read
auth-access=write
### The password-db option controls the location of the password
### database file. Unless you specify a path starting with a /,
### the file’s location is relative to the conf directory.
### Uncomment the line below to use the default password file.
password-db=passwd
### The authz-db option controls the location of the authorization
### rules for path-based access control. Unless you specify a path
### starting with a /, the file’s location is relative to the conf
### directory. If you don’t specify an authz-db, no path-based access
### control is done.
### Uncomment the line below to use the default authorization file.
# authz-db = authz
### This option specifies the authentication realm of the repository.
### If two repositories have the same authentication realm, they should
### have the same password database, and vice versa. The default realm
### is repository’s uuid.
# realm = My First Repository

———————-

Solution is very simple, just remove the SPACE in front of lines which are not be commented.

Taking advantage of “post-commit”

admin — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 06:44:37 +0000

If the SVN system could be a good backup system, then the "post-commit" script would be a hidden gem. After I have done the "weird" requirement from the programmers, It trigger me think about a nice backup system.

Writing a remote executable SSH command in post-commit script of the SVN system. After every commit, the system will automatically put all files to two different hosts. The two hosts can be located in two different cities, even two different countries.

post commit

admin — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 21:40:58 +0000

Programmers require that they want see the effect right after they commit their codes and fortunately the SVN system provides such a great tool to do so.

Under /repository name/hooks/, there is a file called post-commit.tmpl, it is a template file that you can revise it to fit your needs.

Upon the requirements from programmers, I have implemented two post commit scripts:

1) the website and the SVN server reside in the same machine
2) the website and the SVN server reside in two different machine

Avoid using the “same” name in SVN repository

admin — Wed, 23 May 2007 21:25:57 +0000

In Linux, the file name is case-sensitive whereas in Windows it is not.

When I commit two files like "file.php" and "File.php" under Linux, it is ok. However, when I update it under Windows, it cause problem.

Got error message when using SVN client

admin — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 01:52:41 +0000


Can’t set position pointer in file ‘/path/to/repos/db/revs/0′: Invalid argument

This message stuck me quite a few days.
The solution is:

Using –with-apr and –with-apr-util when compiling SVN AND the paths pointing to apache’s package, namely like this

./configure --with-apxs=/usr/local/apache2/bin/apxs \ –with-apr=/source/httpd-2.2.4/srclib/apr \ –with-apr-util=/source/httpd-2.2.4/srclib/apr-util updated by May 21, 2007 ###################################################### if you got error massage like this:


no XML parser was found: expat or libxml 2.x required

configure failed for neon

you can do this first:./configure --with-apxs=/usr/local/apache2/bin/apxs


then re-configure again.

I don’t know why, it is really weird. ######################################################Notice that folder /source is for my case, you have to change it to your folder where the Apache’s source resides


Please don’t forget  
make clean
before you
make it again.

setup Subversion server on CentOS/Apache friends

admin — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 00:28:46 +0000

I have no choice, the company I am working with is currently using CentOS4.4/Apache friends 1.6. But they need SVN.

The little trick is, the apache friends 1.6 could not be compiled with mod_dav_svn.so so that I could not pass the ./configure with –with-apxs=/opt/lampp/bin/apxs.

Finally, I gave up, compiled Subversion 1.4.3 without apxs. Everything worked fine but the HTTP method.

Then I looked into Apache friends 1.6, I found it comes with Apache 2.2.4.

So I used another machine to compile Apache 2.2.4 like this

#./configure –enable-dav –enable-so –enable-maintainer-mode
#make
#make install

compile Subversion 1.4.3 like this

#./configure –with-apxs=/usr/local/apache2/bin/apxs
# rm /usr/local/lib/libsvn*
# make clean && make && make install

Eventually, I got

mod_dav_svn.so and mod_authz_svn.so

I copied them to /opt/lampp/modules

In /opt/lampp/etc/httpd.conf added two lines like this

LoadModule dav_svn_module modules/mod_dav_svn.so
LoadModule authz_svn_module modules/mod_authz_svn.so

restart lampp, DONE !

Updated on March 28, 2007
Thanks Runge, here are the two files
mod_dav_svn.so
mod_authz.svn.so