Installing Subversion on BlueHost

Posted on Thursday, April 22, 2010

23 Replies

This was a rather challenging task that I recently took on in order to setup code versioning for some WordPress Themes and plugins that I have been working on. There were plenty of articles explaining how to compile a Subversion to the $HOME directory on a BlueHost account, but due to a recent OpenSSH update on the BlueHost servers, connections over svn+ssh were failing.

After hours of searching and testing possible workarounds, I found that the best way to resolve the issues with svn+ssh was to use a customized public/private key pair for SVN connections. The following is a step-by-step guide to setting up Subversion on a shared host (BlueHost).

1. Download and Compile Subversion

Downloading and compiling is as simple as copy-and-pasting the following commands:

# mkdir ~/src && cd ~/src
# wget http://subversion.tigris.org/downloads/subversion-deps-1.6.11.tar.gz
# wget http://subversion.tigris.org/downloads/subversion-1.6.11.tar.gz
# tar -xzvf subversion-deps-1.6.11.tar.gz
# tar -xzvf subversion-1.6.11.tar.gz
# cd subversion-1.6.11
# ./configure --prefix=$HOME --without-apxs
# make && make install

Subversion nicely handles all the dependencies, so you won’t have to compile each one individually as long as everything is unzipped into the same directory. The only thing left to do is modify our $PATH variable so that bash can find the Subversion commands. Edit your ~/.bash_profile script and make sure that you add ~/bin to your path.

~/.bash_profile

# Get the aliases and functions
if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then
	. ~/.bashrc
fi

# User specific environment and startup programs

PATH=$PATH:~/bin

export PATH
unset USERNAME

Let’s test our installation by attempting to create our repository in the ~/svn directory.

# cd ~ && svnadmin create svn

If everything was installed properly, the commands above should have created a directory at ~/svn. The structure of the directory will look something like this:

drwxr-xr-x  2 wemaziec wemaziec 4096 Apr 22 19:36 conf/
drwxr-sr-x  6 wemaziec wemaziec 4096 Apr 22 19:36 db/
-r--r--r--  1 wemaziec wemaziec    2 Apr 22 19:36 format
drwxr-xr-x  2 wemaziec wemaziec 4096 Apr 22 19:36 hooks/
drwxr-xr-x  2 wemaziec wemaziec 4096 Apr 22 19:36 locks/
-rw-r--r--  1 wemaziec wemaziec  229 Apr 22 19:36 README.txt

Before moving on to the next step, try issuing an svn list command from your client.

# svn list svn+ssh://user@hostname/home/user/svn

This will most likely fail with a bash: svnserve: command not found error. This comes about due to a recent update to BlueHost’s OpenSSH services which disabled execution of the .bash_profile script for non-interactive logins, hence the svnserve command cannot be found when connecting with svn+ssh. Luckily, there is a workaround that will solve this problem.

2. Setup Public/Private Key for SVN

On your BlueHost server, generate a public/private key for use with SVN. Place the public key in your authorized_keys file with the syntax ‘command=”~/bin/svnserve -t” ‘ at the beginning of the entry for your public key. The terminal commands below will do this for you automatically.

# ssh-keygen -f ~/.ssh/id_rsa_svn -N '' -q
# echo 'command="~/bin/svnserve -t" ' | cat - ~/.ssh/id_rsa_svn.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

Copy the private key to your local ~/.ssh folder

# scp username@hostname:~/.ssh/id_rsa_svn ~/.ssh/

Now, just edit your ~/.subversion/config file and customize the ssh tunnel so that it uses your new private key.

~/.subversion/config

...
### Section for configuring tunnel agents.
[tunnels]
### Configure svn protocol tunnel schemes here.  By default, only
### the 'ssh' scheme is defined.  You can define other schemes to
### be used with 'svn+scheme://hostname/path' URLs.  A scheme
### definition is simply a command, optionally prefixed by an
### environment variable name which can override the command if it
### is defined.  The command (or environment variable) may contain
### arguments, using standard shell quoting for arguments with
### spaces.  The command will be invoked as:
###   <command> <hostname> svnserve -t
### (If the URL includes a username, then the hostname will be
### passed to the tunnel agent as <user>@<hostname>.)  Here we
### redefine the built-in 'ssh' scheme to avoid an unfortunate
### interaction with the "ControlMaster auto" feature (for
### details, see Debian Bug #413102):
#ssh = $SVN_SSH ssh -o ControlMaster=no
ssh = ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa_svn
...

Now, your client should be able to connect properly, as long as you specify the private key file to use when connecting via svn+ssh:

# svn list svn+ssh://user@hostname/home/user/svn

Update: On some clients you may get a message like “Warning: Identity file ~/.ssh/id_rsa_svn not accessible: No such file or directory.” If this is the case, try specifying the full path to your private key file in ~/.subversion/config. For example:

ssh = ssh -i /home/franklin/.ssh/id_rsa_svn

WizSileX

Nice guide:)
I did all the point’s and still get the “bash: svnserve: command not found”
Does your svn still work?
http://www.franklinstrube.com Franklin Strube

WizSileX,

My SVN is still working, I just tried today and was able to successfully list my SVN repositories via an svn list command.
http://haitianvoodoospells.com love spells

Nice wordpress theme, is it free?
http://www.franklinstrube.com Franklin Strube

It is a theme that I am developing myself called “Cool Red”. It should be available soon under the Projects link.
Eric

Found this post through xplus3.net. Followed all the steps and I am also still getting:
bash: svnserve: command not found

after running svn list [...]

I even tried copying svnserve from ~/bin into ~/ but that didn’t fix the problem either (even though ~/bin IS in my $PATH so it shouldn’t really make a difference.)
Eric

Finally got this working. w00t.

If you’re having trouble with “bash: svnserve: command not found” after following all these instructions, put this line in your ~/.subversion/config file under [tunnels]:
ssh = ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa_svn user@hostname ~/bin/svnserve -t #

instead of:
ssh = ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa_svn

By explicitly putting the full path to the svnserve executable, there is no confusion within bash on where to find it, searching in the path, etc. and by putting a ‘#’ at the end of the line, everything that is placed after it (namely, ” svnserve -t” from the notes in ~/.subversion/config that specify this syntax: svnserve -t) will be disregarded.
Eric

Not trying to comment spam here, but I keep thinking of new things.. my solution of putting:
ssh = ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa_svn user@hostname ~/bin/svnserve -t #

in ~/.subversion/config makes it so you can’t connect to other svn repositories elsewhere, so it would probably be better set up like this:

lsh = ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa_svn user@hostname ~/bin/svnserve -t #

and then invoked by using the ‘lsh’ scheme:
svn list svn+lsh://user@hostname/home/user/svn

Which would still allow you to use svn+ssh for other repositories.
Jaime

Hello…

I have followed all these instructions but installing subversion in a subdomain of BlueHost. the subdomain is svn.desytec.com. the physical folder of the subdomain is ~/subversion. Inside it I created a folder called “projects”.

In SSH connection, I changed to that directory and then issued a “svnadmin create repository”. The repository structure was created but when I issued the list command, this error occurs:

# svn list svn+lsh://svn.desytec.com/projects
svn: No repository found in ‘svn+lsh://svn.desytec.com/projects’
Killed by signal 15.
#

If I run hte followinr command, this appears:

# svn list svn+lsh://localhost/home2/desytecc/www/subversion/projects/repository
Killed by signal 15.
#

Why I cannot list repository content? how can I test the installation? When I browse to the repository using http protocol, the folders are listed, which is a security problem.

any help will be greatly appreciated

Thanks
Jaime
Abhi

Eric you are the saviour. your suggestion finally got things working for me
Rusty

Thanks for the post. I followed all the steps above, yet still got “bash: svnserve: command not found”. I then followed the suggestions from Eric. After changing to

ssh = ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa_svn user@hostname ~/bin/svnserve -t #

I was finally able to run svn list while logged in to a session at bluehost. Great.

However, this is only half the story. I still cannot connect remotely. When I run the following from another machine I still get “bash: svnserve: command not found”

svn list svn+ssh://username@hostname/home/username/path/to/repo

Using lsh did not work either.

Thanks for all the help up to now.
http://www.hahnlink.com iBeej

If you run in to a “Killed by signal 15″ error, add -q to your config, so it looks like this:

ssh = ssh -q -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa_svn user@hostname ~/bin/svnserve -t #
hIdea

Thanks for the great post, it works for me.
hIdea

I have a another problem on how can a group use the repository effectively. I mean can people use their own username to access the repository instead of using the account name for the repository.

Here is what I want to do:

ssh checkout svn+ssh://[different user name]@host.com/path/to/repo/project

Can I just modify the svnserve.conf, and passwd file? But i think it will not work because it need ssh into the server, so is there other way to do that? or can I use Apache to checkout the repository from the Bluehost serve?
Louie

I’ve successfully had access to my repos in cygwin (win32), thanks to franklin, eric and iBeej. I wonder how I can use TortoiseSVN instead. I tried the following article but failed:
http://www.tabruyn.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=55:tortoisesvn-subversion-and-bluehost&catid=36:digital&Itemid=58
http://www.franklinstrube.com Franklin Strube

If you don’t want to muck with your svn client configuration file and tweak the ssh tunnel, there is an alternative.

All you have to do is edit your ~/.ssh/config file and add an alias for your repository. The format goes something like this:

host svn.server.alias
HostName svn.server.name #the server name or IP
IdentityFile /path/to/private_key

With that in your ssh config file, it will use your identity file only when connecting to svn+ssh://[email protected]. This way you can connect to other svn servers just as you normally would.
Mark Weiser

I’m a newbie trying to move subversion from my Windows server in my basement to a hosted site. I was able to install VisualSVN under windows and get viewvc running with my apache server (dedicated port 81) in a few minutes then was able to connect with TortoiseSVN.

I’d like to get this to work the same on the BlueHost box working through a port. Basically I don’t understand the ssh stuff I need to do on the server. I’m happy to manage seperate usernames/passwords for SVN which I can do through VisualSVN.

I did get through step 1 until: svn list svn+ssh://user@hostname/home/user/svn
Pingback: Install SVN on Bluehost – Complete Step-by-Step « Browsing Life
http://wopainteractive.com andresM

hi, i did all the tuto and works fine everything as you explain in it untill y get to the tortoiseSVN connection.

i did this tuto (http://www.tabruyn.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=55:tortoisesvn-subversion-and-bluehost&catid=36:digital&Itemid=58)
so i used the TortoisePLink.exe and i get this message:

Checkout from svn+ssh://user@puttySavedSession/home/user/svn/myEmptyProject, revision HEAD, Fully recursive, Externals included
To better debug SSH connection problems, remove the -q option from ‘ssh’ in the
[tunnels] section of your Subversion configuration file.
Network connection closed unexpectedly

what does this messages means?
http://www.franklinstrube.com Franklin Strube

Andres,

Was the checkout successful? Try removing -q from your ssh command in the Subversion client configurations (I am unsure of how to do this with Tortoise, but on linux it is in ~/.subversion/config), and see if you can get a more descriptive error message.
http://codetastic.com Matt Bosworth

Hey,

Works great! The # at the end of the .subversion/config line is genius.

For what it’s worth, if you use that then you shouldn’t need to add a command to the authorized_keys file.

Thanks again, I’ve spent two nights wandering the internets looking for a solution

-Matt
Lance

Thanks for this awesome and simple guide. I had one small issue that’s driven me nuts for two day. The ‘authorized_keys’ file was split into two lines, ‘command=”~/bin/svnserve -t” ‘ and then the key on the next line. Putting the two into one continuous line solved the ‘svnserve: command not found’ error, although this won’t be the only thing that can cause this error.
BigBed

Thks Lance !

I was having an error like svn: Connection closed unexpectly and my ‘authorized_keys’ file was split into two lines, ‘command=”~/bin/svnserve -t” ‘ and then the key on the next line. Putting the two into one continuous line solved the problem.
Chris

Thanks a million for this! It has gotten me closer than I have ever been, however I am still getting an error.

I am running Versions (Mac OSX SVN client), and whenever I try to update or check-in I get:

To better debug SSH connection problems, remove the -q option from ‘ssh’ in the [tunnels] section of your Subversion configuration file.
An unknown Subversion error occurred. (code = 210002)

My .subversion/config file has:

ssh = ssh -i ~/.ssh/mythos_dev_rsa_svn [email protected] ~/programs/bin/svnserve -t #

There is no “-q” at the end of the line anymore, but am totally unable to update or check-in. I can connect to the repo fine the first time, but then I will get the same error occasionally if I click away from it and then re-select it.

Any help IMMENSELY appreciated!

Chris

#!/bin/strube

Installing Subversion on BlueHost

1. Download and Compile Subversion

2. Setup Public/Private Key for SVN

Further Reading