Subversion client not working properly

[tobias@…]

Dear all,

I recently tried to setup svn again, following the simple procedure found here:

​http://trac.macports.org/wiki/howto/Subversion

However, when trying to setup the initial import, I encounter the same error over and over again:

tte@enso:~/svn-template$ svn import . http://localhost/svn/playground/ -m "Initial import."
svn: MKACTIVITY of '/svn/playground/!svn/act/56fe0960-616b-4c24-995e-a2b6ee323911': Could not read status line: connection was closed by server (http://localhost)

I double-checked the previous steps (especially permissions and network settings), recompiled apache, apr, apr-util, as well as subversion, all to no avail.

So, I'm not quite sure if this is just a bug or some misconfiguration on my side. Any help will be appreciated!

Tobias

[tobypeterson]

Ok, does /usr/bin/svn give you the same error? Sure sounds like a configuration issue on your end.

[tobias@…]

Testing with /usr/bin/svn is not that easy to accomplish, as configuring SL's Apache to use the svn_dav module doesn't work that well out of the box. Here the error message is "Unknown DAV provider: svn".

I'm going to recompile MacPorts from scratch and hope that'll help. Otherwise I'm ditching SVN for home use and turn to Git. :)

[tobias@…]

Sorry, don't mind the "Unknown DAV provider: svn" message. SL's Apache fails silently after I made the necessary changes in its httpd.conf.

[jmroot (Joshua Root)]

If you're not sure whether it's a bug, asking for help by e.g. posting to the -users list is the correct action, not filing a ticket.

[danielluke (Daniel J. Luke)]

Sounds like you don't have the svn DAV module configured correctly (you might find more information in your apache logs).

[tobias@…]

Sorry for not providing enough details. I'm aware that the bug tracker should only be used for real bugs. On the other hand, I've been using exactly the same SVN configuration as before, which worked perfectly, including virtual hosts.

I've just recompiled MacPorts from scratch and followed the general MacPorts SVN instructions precisely. Unfortunately, I've encountered the same error as before:

tte@enso:~/svn-template$ svn import . ​http://svn.lo/playground -m "Initial import." svn: MKACTIVITY of '/playground/!svn/act/9b535b91-8c14-4701-a6bc-e53a8a437515': Could not read status line: connection was closed by server (​http://svn.lo)

Here's the Apache configuration part:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName svn.lo
    <Location />
      DAV svn
      SVNParentPath /svn
      SVNListParentPath on
    </Location>
    ErrorLog "/www/logs/svn.lo/error.log"
    CustomLog "/www/logs/svn.lo/access.log" common
</VirtualHost>

Here's the relevant part of the virtual host's access log:

127.0.0.1 - - [17/Oct/2009:19:38:00 +0200] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 293
127.0.0.1 - - [17/Oct/2009:19:38:01 +0200] "GET /playground/ HTTP/1.1" 200 244
127.0.0.1 - - [17/Oct/2009:19:38:03 +0200] "OPTIONS /playground HTTP/1.1" 200 190
127.0.0.1 - - [17/Oct/2009:19:38:03 +0200] "PROPFIND /playground HTTP/1.1" 207 651
127.0.0.1 - - [17/Oct/2009:19:38:03 +0200] "PROPFIND /playground/!svn/vcc/default HTTP/1.1" 207 402
127.0.0.1 - - [17/Oct/2009:19:38:03 +0200] "PROPFIND /playground/!svn/bln/0 HTTP/1.1" 207 453
127.0.0.1 - - [17/Oct/2009:19:38:03 +0200] "PROPFIND /playground/!svn/bc/0 HTTP/1.1" 207 661

There are no entries in the error log.

The strange thing is that web access works perfectly; I'm able to browse my repositories. The dav_svn and authz_svn modules are enabled in httpd.conf, the /svn directory and its subdirectories also have the right permissions.

I'd be glad if you have any pointers.

Thanks Tobias

[danielluke (Daniel J. Luke)]

You don't show your auth configuration.

If you don't need it, setting "SVNPathAuthz off" might help.

[tobias@…]

I've disabled auth for testing purposes.

Thanks for your suggestion. Unfortunately, I didn't work in this case.

I'm really not sure on how to debug this one. Apart from Apache's access log, are there some other svn access logs available?

[tobias@…]

After some debugging (not that I did that for several hours - hey, it's weekend.. ;-)), I finally found a workaround. It's not a real solution, as it involves a local portfile repository:

1) Downgrade devel/apr from 1.3.9 to 1.3.8 (using revision 57375)
2) Recompile Subversion

Now, everything works fine again.

Maybe this bug should be addressed in apr's or Subversion's upstream, if it's not related to MacPorts.

[danielluke (Daniel J. Luke)]

Replying to tobias@…:

Maybe this bug should be addressed in apr's or Subversion's upstream, if it's not related to MacPorts.

That's possible. If you do end up reporting it there, it would be helpful if you could include a link to the discussion and/or the bug report in this ticket. (I'll try to follow it and if a patch gets push upstream to fix it, I can add it to the port so we get it before the next upstream release).

[jashugan@…]

Thanks Tobias. Your solution fixed this issue for us.