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Access methods to a Subversion repository

SubGit, like any other Subversion client, can access a Subversion repository by using one of the following protocols.

Table 1. Subversion repository access protocols

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file://

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svn://

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svn+ssh://

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http(s)://

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All the other access methods to a Subversion repository require the appropriate authentication settings for SubGit.

Obtaining the authentication data for a Subversion repository

SubGit obtains the authentication data from the [auth default] section of the SubGit configuration  file that is located at GIT_REPO/subgit/config.

Depending on the configuration, your Subversion server can request the following authentication  data to log in to a Subversion repository:

• a username and a password
• an SSL client certificate
  
• an SSH private key
  

In the [auth "default"] section of the SubGit configuration file, you can specify the authentication settings depending on the authentication data that is required This section provides information on the authentication settings that you can specify to log in to a Subversion repository.

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You can specify credentials to log in to a Subversion repository in the following settings:

[auth "default"]
userName = 
password = 
passwords =
credentialHelper =
subversionConfigurationDirectory = 
useDefaultSubversionConfigurationDirectory =

SubGit refers to these settings in the sequence presented below. If some setting is not specified or the credentials fetched from the setting are not valid, SubGit refers to the next one until it is able to log in to a Subversion repository.

1. The userName and password settings.
2. The passwords setting that refers to the passwords file for a username-password pair.
   
3. A credential helper program.
   
4. Subversion credentials cache from the Subversion client configuration directory.
   

If none of the settings is specified or fetched credentials are not valid, SubGit reports the authentication error.

The userName and password settings

The userName and password settings specify a username and a password to access a Subversion repository.

The passwords setting

The passwords setting defines a path to the passwords file that can contain the list of username-password pairs to log in to a Subversion repository. The path can be either absolute or relative to the Git repository.

The default value:

[auth "default"]
passwords = subgit/passwd

The default password file is located in the subgit directory within a Git repository. In this file, you can specify the list of username-password pairs as plain text in the following format:

svnUserName svnUserPassword

The credentials from the passwords file may be used for mapping Git authors to Subversion revision authors when you translate Git commits to Subversion revisions. For the mapping purpose, you can specify the list of available usernames and passwords in the passwords file, though it is not obligatory. For more information on authors mapping, refer to the Authors Mapping section.

Using credential helper programs

SubGit supports credential helper programs to obtain the authentication data to log in to a Subversion repository. A credential helper program is a script that fetches credentials from the external sources, for example, from LDAP catalogs, authentication servers or databases.

To enable a credential helper program, specify the following setting:

[auth "default"]
credentialHelper = PATH [args]

The credentialHelper setting defines a path to a credential helper program and its optional arguments. The path can be either absolute or relative to the Git repository.

The initial SubGit configuration places the sample credential helper script (the credentialHelper.sh file) to the subgit/samples directory in the Git repository.

The initial script contains the following:

#!/bin/sh
 
echo username=svnUser
echo password=svnPassword
 
exit 0;

You can configure this script to fetch the credentials from some external source to log in to a Subversion repository. Use the standard Git credential helper input/output format with the exception that the command name is not required.

Input:

url = SVN_URL
protocol = SVN_URL_PROTOCOL
path = SVN_URL_PATH
username = PREFFERED_SVN_USER_NAME

Output:

username = SVN_USER_NAME
password = SVN_PASSWORD

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SubGit can refer to the Subversion credentials cache to log in to a Subversion repository.

To enable the authentication with Subversion credentials cache, specify the following settings:

[auth "default"]
subversionConfigurationDirectory = PATH
useDefaultSubversionConfigurationDirectory = [true | false]

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The useDefaultSubversionConfigurationDirectory setting specifies whether SubGit will use the default Subversion configuration directory to obtain the authentication data or not.

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• On Windows
  

Subversion clients store encrypted passwords in the %APPDATA%\Subversion\auth\svn.simple directory. Passwords are encrypted by the standard Windows cryptographic services.

• On Mac OS X
  

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• On Unix-like operating systems
  

By default, Subversion clients ask permission to store unencrypted passwords in the ~/.subversion/auth/svn.simple directory. The secure storage can be provided by the GNOME Keyring, KDE Wallet or GnuPG Agent services.

The example below shows how to use the Subversion credentials cache with encrypted passwords on Linux.

Example 1. Use of credentials cache with encrypted passwords on Linux

All the passwords stores are disabled in the Subversion configuration file:

[auth]
    ### Set password stores used by Subversion. They should be
    ### delimited by spaces or commas. The order of values determines
    ### the order in which password stores are used.
    ### Valid password stores:
    ###   gnome-keyring        (Unix-like systems)
    ###   kwallet              (Unix-like systems)
    ###   gpg-agent            (Unix-like systems)
    ###   keychain             (Mac OS X)
    ###   windows-cryptoapi    (Windows)
    # password-stores = gpg-agent,gnome-keyring,kwallet
    ### To disable all password stores, use an empty list:
    # password-stores =

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To enable a password store, in the Subversion configuration file, uncomment a password-stores line and specify the store that you want to enable.

For example, password-stores = gnome-keyring

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SubGit can use the credentials cache from this directory to log in to a Subversion repository.

Using the SSL client certificate authentication

If you want to use the SSL client certificate authentication to access a Subversion repository, specify the following settings:

[auth "default"]
sslClientCertFile = PATH
sslClientCertPassphrase = passphrase

The sslClientCertFile setting defines a path to the SSL client certificate file in PKSC#12 format. The path can be either absolute or relative to the Git repository.

The sslClientCertPassphrase setting specifies a passphrase that can be optionally used to protect the SSL certificate.

A web server that hosts a Subversion repository can be configured to request a username and password after the authentication with an SSL client certificate. For the information on the settings that you can use to specify a username and password, see the Specifying a username Specifying a username and a password section.

The other way to specify a path to an SSL client certificate and an optional passphrase is the the Subversion servers file that is located in the default Subversion configuration directory.

 [global]
 ssl-client-cert-file = PATH
 ssl-client-cert-password = passphrase

In this case, no additional settings are required in the [auth "default"] section of the SubGit configuration file. SubGit refers to the servers file for an SSL certificate to log in to a Subversion repository.

If a web server that hosts a Subversion repository along with an SSL client certificate requires a username and a password for authentication, SubGit refers to the servers configuration file for an SSL certificate and uses the Subversion credentials cache to log in to a Subversion repository. To specify the settings that fetch the Subversion credentials cache, see the Using the Subversion credentials cache section.

Access methods to a Subversion repository

Obtaining the authentication data for a Subversion repository

Specifying a username and a password

Using the SSH key-based authentication

If you want to use

[auth "default"]
sshKeyFile = PATH
sshKeyFilePassphrase = passphrase

The sshKeyFile setting defines a path to the file that contains the SSH private key to log in to a Subversion repository. The path can be either absolute or relative to the Git repository.

The sshKeyFilePassphrase setting specifies a passphrase that can be optionally used to protect the SSH private key.

SubGit also requires a Subversion username when using the SSH key-based authentication. In this case, the username can be specified in one of the following settings:

[auth "default"]
userName = user

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Using the SSL client certificate authentication