Subversion does not remember my user/password

Question

Hi there. I've installed subversion on Ubuntu following this guide: http://alephzarro.com/blog/2007/01/07/installation-of-subversion-on-ubuntu-with-apache-ssl-and-basicauth

It works, I was able commit and create different repositories, but somehow, from time to time (sometimes minutes),when trying to do a commit, I'm forced to reset or recreate my user and password with the following command:

htpasswd2 -c -m /etc/apache2/dav_svn.passwd $AUTH_USER

because svn does not recognize my user/password anymore. I'm using Tortoise SVN as SVN Client. I would like to know why this is happening. Maybe it's a configuration issue, or maybe TortoiseSVN is sending invalid credentials, causing a locked account. Since I'm far to be an SVN expert/admin, I would be great if someone could give some pointers in order to attack the problem. All suggestions are welcomed. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

i'm using Tortoise SVN as well but on Windows. users' passwords are managed by active directory on network domain. so usernames are in the format <domain>\<user>. And from time to time (weeks), I need to reset the password; it seems like the password is changed. I just do not know why.

Answer 2

Seems to be a similar problem, but in my case I'm using Ubuntu instead of AD. If you find something, please let me know.

Answer 3

Check if your password-file actually has changed. Do a

md5 /etc/apache2/dav_svn.passwd or cat /etc/apache2/dav_svn.passwd

when it works, and after it stops working. If it changes, you've gotta figure out why (automatic update from a cronjob? some website/admin tool changing it for you?)

Note that subversion + apache does not change this file in any way if you're using any form of default setup.

I also hope that you replace $AUTH_USER with your proper username ;-) (or at least have exported the variable).

If the file hasn't changed, then it's something else. See if there's anything in the apache error log.

A few other possibilities:

• Try disabling https (for testing - since you probably don't have a valid certificate).
• Check your .subversion/auth folder; I'm not sure about tortoisesvn, but I believe it stores credential information there (just like vanilla svn).
• Not likely, but instead of recreating your user see if touch /etc/apache2/dav_svn.passwd will do the trick.
• Is the file writable by anyone but root? If so, chmod 644 /etc/apache2/dav_svn.passwd