Is it possible to get a subversion client log file?

Question

At the moment, we have a problem that exists only for a few Subversion clients.

We would like to get a Subversion client log file, which contains information what command was send to the server, what response came back and so on. Is there the possibility to switch on logging to get that information on the client?

I found tons of information what to do with subversion logs, but that does not help here.

Because the notes asked for, here is the problem part:

1. We have a central LDAP for all authentication information. This is used everywhere in the company,

2. Subversion is configured such to get the authentication information there,

3. The clients that have problems tell us that they have to change their password on some days even two or three times due to wrong authentication. The LDAP allows max X times the wrong password in a row, after that, the password has to be changed,

4. The clients that have problems tell us that they do not use any scripts or automatic clients,

5. The Apache HTTP Server logs tell us that the clients try to log-in in the same second 15 times.

6. We use HTTPS to access the subversion server from everywhere.

So I think, there should be anything wrong on the client side, but I have no clue what the reason could be. And the subversion client log files would be a great help here.

Answer 1

Set neon-debug-mask in the [global] section of your subversion servers config file to 138 to get authentication debugging.

[global]
<snip...>
neon-debug-mask = 138

This can be done on the SVN server side and/or the client side. One side is usually enough to see what's exploding.

Most likely the LDAP integration is screwy; keep in mind that depending on your setup, the users' LDAP logins may be case sensitive according to what you've configured in your svn permissions file.

[Note: I haven't actually had to do this since around SVN 1.3, I assume it still works similarly.]

Answer 2

For SVN client logfile try C:\Documents and Settings[user-name]\Application Data\TortoiseSVN\logfile.txt or similar according your environment