How do I prevent a subversion user accessing part of the repository?

Question

I'm using a Subversion repository hosted on Dreamhost for a project.

I would like to allow access to some users on a restricted basis. At the very least I would like to allow read-only access to some users, but ideally I would like to prevent some users seeing some parts of repository at all. I can't find user permissions mentioned in the web docs for Subversion though I assume it is there?

I'm used to using Perforce, so what I want is what p4 protect does for Perforce.

Thanks.

Answer 1

Have a look at the authz file in the conf/ directory. You can set permissions for specific users and specific directories. In svnserve.conf you can specify if anonymous users have read access or not.

Here's an example from a repository of mine:

[groups]
project1_team = dave, john, andy

[/]
* =
dave = rw

[/project1]
@project1_team = rw

[/project2]
andy = r

What's happening here is that I defined a group of users having full access to project1; dave (which happens to be me) has full access to the entire repository, while andy has read-only access to project2.