SVN Part 1

Subversion is another awesome piece of software for keeping files in sync across multiple computers. Not quite suited for backing up pictures or anything like that -- but hey, its great for big coding projects! Usually with big projects, there are different levels of access. For example, Bob's algorithm may be super secret and only he and Bill should be able to see the code for it. But, Barry may be logging in to the same SVN server and need access to other code. There's an app for that. I mean, there's a feature for that. Also, perhaps not everyone should have access to the server's file, or even an account on the server. Well, there's a feature for that, too. Anyway, here's the procedure/setup I came up with after lots of research/trial-and-(hopefully not catastrophic) error.

Make sure at least YOU can ssh into the server (or better yet, be sitting in front of it and skip the next few steps). Its handy to use an RSA key so you can log in automatically and don't have to type your password every time you want to execute a subversion command. So:

sh-keygen -t rsa

will generate you a key. Then:

rsync -a ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub server:~/.ssh/

Before we switch over to the server, if you're using a non-standard port, in /etc/ssh/ssh_config, add:

Host [server]
Port [port #]
Host * [this line should be there already, it just tells you where to put the 2 preceeding lines]

Next, ssh over to the server and:

cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
rm ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

The >> instead of just > puts the key at the END of the file instead of overwriting, so if you already have a computer set up in your authorized_keys file, this will preserve that setup.

Now you should be able to log in with no password using ssh [server].

Part 2 coming soon! :P