Introduction

This site provides a Subversion server for several projects. Since most of the projects are private (theses), the svn server is using SSL encryption and is only accessible by users who have an account.

Every user has access to a pseudo-project called sandbox. The sandbox repository allows users to explore Subversion without the fear to destroy important data.

Installing Subversion

Unix/Linux

All distributions provide Subversion. The easiest way to install subversion is to use the package manager.

Windows

Windows users might want to install TortoiseSVN TortoiseSVN. This is a Subversion client which integrates itself into the Exploder.

However, in order to provide support, a GUI isn't useful. I have to assume that Subversion commands can be typed at the command line. If you encounter a problem when using GUI tools, don't ask me for help.

There are two alternatives:

Subversion on Windows

Subversion

bin

%PATH%

This approach has a few drawbacks. The Windows command-line interface is a pain. The command history isn't saved at the end of a session, command- and filename completion doesn't work properly, wildcards are not supported, and quoting rules are not documented, if there are any at all. But the most annoying thing is that Unicode isn't supported.

You can use this interface in order to run any Subversion command except svn commit or svn ci because your comment will be inserted with a non-standard character encoding (Code Page 850, which isn't even supported by Windows).

Cygwin

Cygwin

It's also advisable to install at least one text editor. Examples are

emacs (The most powerful editor. Requires libgnutls26.)
vim (An improved version of the standard Unix editor vi. Also quite powerful.)
nano ( A simple editor for beginners. Not very convenient.)

zip

unzip

ghostscript

If you have TeX Live already installed on Windows, you can use it on Cygwin too. However, you have to install the Cygwin binaries.

Though Cygwin is a closed environment, you have full access to files on Windows partitions. If TeX Live had been installed at the root of drive C: (which is the default) there is a directory c:\texlive on Windows. On Cygwin the directory appears as /cygdrive/c/texlive.

In order to install TeX Live binaries for Cygwin, execute the following steps on the command line:

cd /cygdrive/c/texlive/2016/bin
wget http://ms25.ddns.net/users/i386-cygwin.tar.gz
tar -xzf i386-cygwin.tar.gz && rm i386-cygwin.tar.gz

nano

nano ~/.bashrc

PATH=/usr/local/bin:/bin:/cygdrive/c/texlive/2012/bin/i386-cygwin
INFOPATH=/cygdrive/c/texlive/2012/texmf/doc/info:$INFOPATH
export PATH INFOPATH

EDITOR=nano
VISUAL=$EDITOR
export EDITOR VISUAL

EDITOR

~/.bashrc

source ~/.bashrc

WARNING: If you install Subversion in different environments, make sure that all instances have the same version number. A working copy created with v1.7 can't be be read by v1.6.

Using Subversion

Subversion is well documented. You usually only need a small subset of what's available. It's often sufficient to type svn help on the command line.

The `sandbox` Repository

Everybody who has an account on this server can access the sandbox repository as well. This repository doesn't contain any important data. You can play with the content without the fear to destroy anything important. Please don't upload large files.

Initial Checkout

Move to a dirctory of your choice and type

svn co https://ms25.ath.cx/svn/sandbox sandbox

This creates a local copy of the contents of the repository in the directory ./sandbox. Don't worry if Subversion complains about an invalid certificate. You'll get a message like this:

Error validating server certificate for 'https://ms25.ath.cx:443':
 - The certificate is not issued by a trusted authority. Use the
   fingerprint to validate the certificate manually!
Certificate information:
 - Hostname: ms25.ath.cx
 - Valid: from Jan  7 11:09:01 2013 GMT until Jan  5 11:09:01 2023 GMT
 - Issuer: ms25.ath.cx
 - Fingerprint: 08:cb:ed:dc:4b:eb:62:b3:36:4a:79:c8:c0:b0:66:6a:93:3e:4c:74
(R)eject, accept (t)emporarily or accept (p)ermanently?

This is normal. SSL assumes that the certificate can be downloaded from a trusted certification authority but this costs money. Instead I installed the certificate on my own server which is regarded to be insecure. Just accept it permanently.

You are asked then for a user name and a password. Once you logged in the first time, your password is stored in ~/subversion/auth/svn.simple or somewhere in the swamps of the registry on Windows...

The password is valid for all projects you are assigned to. This is at least the sandbox repository. Once your password is stored on your local machine, you'll never be asked for it again.