How can I prevent users from committing binaries into subversion?

Question

I have a headstrong user who stubbornly insists on committing his binaries (executables, DLLs) into our subversion repositories. I'd go in and delete them, but of course nothing is ever really deleted from subversion.

While there are times when we need to commit binaries, I don't want users doing it as a matter of routine. I can set an ignore property but that doesn't prevent users from committing binaries if they are really determined. What I'd like to do is be able to control the ability to commit nominated file types, particularly .exe and .dll files, on a directory-by-directory basis.

Is there a way to do that in SVN? If it makes any differentce, we are using VisualSVN server and TortoiseSVN.

Answer 1

Tim:

You might try this python hook script. It is (loosely) based on the one above, but allows regular expression patterns for the reject paths and allows overriding the check by having a line that begins

Overide:

in the log message. It uses the new python print syntax, so it requires a fairly recent version of python (2.6+?).

from __future__ import print_function

import sys,os
import subprocess 
import re

#this is a list of illegal patterns:
illegal_patterns = [
    '\.exe$',
    '\.dll$',
    '[\^|/]bin/',
    '[\^|/]obj/',
]

# Path to svnlook command:
cmdSVNLOOK=r"{}bin\svnlook.exe".format(os.environ["VISUALSVN_SERVER"])

print(illegal_patterns, file=sys.stderr)

print("cmdSVNLook={}".format(cmdSVNLOOK), file=sys.stderr)

def runSVNLook(subCmd, transact, repoPath):
    svninfo =  subprocess.Popen([cmdSVNLOOK, subCmd, '-t', transact, repoPath], 
                          stdout = subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE)
    (stdout, stderr) = svninfo.communicate()

    if len(stderr) > 0:
        print("svnlook generated stderr: " + stderr, file=sys.stderr)
        sys.exit(1)

    return [ line.strip() for line in stdout.split("\n") ]

def findIllegalPattern(fileName):
    for pattern in illegal_patterns:
        if re.search(pattern, fileName):
            print("pattern: {} matched filename:{}".format(pattern, fileName))
            return pattern
    return None

def containsOverRide(logOutput):
    retVal = False
    for line in logOutput:
        print("log line: {}".format(line), file=sys.stderr)
        if re.match("^override:", line.lower()):
            retVal = True
            break
    print("contiansOverRide={}".format(retVal), file=sys.stderr)
    return retVal

def findIllegalNames(changeOutput):
    illegalNames = []
    prog = re.compile('(^[ACUDRM_])[ACUDRM]*\s+(.+)')  # regex for svnlook output
    for line in changeOutput:
        print("processing:{}".format(line), file=sys.stderr)
        if (line != ""):
            match=re.search(prog, line.strip())
            if match:
                mode = match.group(1) 
                ptFilename = match.group(2)
                if mode == 'A':
                  pattern = findIllegalPattern(ptFilename)
                  if pattern:
                      illegalNames.append((pattern, ptFilename))
            else:
                print("svnlook output parsing failed!", file=sys.stderr)
                sys.exit(1)
    return illegalNames

######### main program ################
def main(args):
    repopath = args[1]
    transact = args[2]

    retVal = 0

    overRidden = containsOverRide(runSVNLook("log", transact, repopath))
    illegalFiles = findIllegalNames(runSVNLook("changed", transact, repopath))

    if len(illegalFiles):
        msg = "****************************************************************************\n"

        if len(illegalFiles) == 1:
            msg += "* This commit contains a file which matches a forbidden pattern            *\n"
        else:
            msg += "* This commit contains files which match a forbidden pattern               *\n"

        if overRidden:
            msg += "* and contains an Override line so the checkin will be allowed            *\n"
        else:
            retVal = 1

            msg += "* and is being rejected.                                                   *\n"
            msg += "*                                                                          *\n"
            msg += "* Files which match these patterns are genreraly created by the            *\n"
            msg += "* built process and should not be added to svn.                            *\n"
            msg += "*                                                                          *\n"
            msg += "* If you intended to add this file to the svn repository, you neeed to     *\n"
            msg += "* modify your commit message to include a line that looks like:            *\n"
            msg += "*                                                                          *\n"
            msg += "* OverRide: <reason for override>                                          *\n"
            msg += "*                                                                          *\n"
        msg +=  "****************************************************************************\n"

        print(msg, file=sys.stderr)

        if len(illegalFiles) == 1:
            print("The file and the pattern it matched are:", file=sys.stderr)
        else:
            print("The files and the patterns they matched are:", file=sys.stderr)

        for (pattern, fileName) in illegalFiles:
              print('\t{}\t{}'.format(fileName, str(pattern)), file=sys.stderr)

    return retVal

if __name__ == "__main__":
    ret = main(sys.argv)
    sys.exit(ret)

Answer 2

Here is a small hooks script which is doing what you want: You have to configure 2 things:

• illegal_suffixes: a python list with all suffixes which should abort the commit
• cmdSVNLOOK: the path to svnlook program

import sys
import subprocess 
import re

#this is a list of illegal suffixes:
illegal_suffixes = ['.exe','.dll']

# Path to svnlook command:
cmdSVNLOOK="/usr/bin/svnlook";

def isIllegalSuffix(progname):
    for suffix in illegal_suffixes:
        if (ptFilename.endswith(suffix)):
            return True
    return False

######### main program ################
repopath = sys.argv[1]
transact = sys.argv[2]

retVal = 0
svninfo = subprocess.Popen([cmdSVNLOOK, 'changed', '-t', transact, repopath], 
                                                        stdout = subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE)
(stdout, stderr) = svninfo.communicate();

prog = re.compile('(^[ACUDRM_])[ACUDRM]*\s+(.+)')  # regex for svnlook output
for line in stdout.split("\n"):
    if (line.strip()!=""):
        match=re.search(prog, line.strip())
        if match:
            mode = match.group(1) 
            ptFilename = match.group(2)
            if mode == 'A' and isIllegalSuffix(ptFilename): 
              retVal = 1
              sys.stderr.write("Please do not add the following ")
              sys.stderr.write("filetypes to repository:\n")
              sys.stderr.write(str(illegal_suffixes)+"\n")
              break
        else:
            sys.stderr.write("svnlook output parsing failed!\n")
            retVal = 1
            break
    else:
        # an empty line is fine!
        retVal = 0
sys.exit(retVal)

Answer 3

Write a pre-commit hook that checks added files whether they fit your criteria.

You could use pre-commit-check.py as a starting point.