Running subversion under apache and mod_python

Question

My Apache server runs on some non-default (not-root) account. When it tries to run a python script which in turn executes a subversion check-out command, 'svn checkout' fails with the following error message:

svn: Can't open file '/root/.subversion/servers': Permission denied

At the same time running that python script with subversion checkout command inside from command line under the same user account goes on perfectly well.

Apache server 2.2.6 with mod_python 3.2.8 runs on Fedora Core 6 machine.

Can anybody help me out? Thanks a lot.

Answer 1

It sounds like the environment you apache process is running under is a little unusual. For whatever reason, svn seems to think the user configuration files it needs are in /root. You can avoid having svn use the root versions of the files by specifying on the command line which config directory to use, like so:

svn --config-dir /home/myuser/.subversion checkout http://example.com/path

While not fixing your enviornment, it will at least allow you to have your script run properly...