As users provide me with an SSH key for repository access, I add a line to .ssh/authorized_keys of this form:

command="/opt/csw/bin/svnserve -t -r repository --tunnel-user=USER",no-port-forwarding,no-agent-forwarding,no-X11-forwarding,no-pty ssh-rsa KEY COMMENT

where USER is the UNIX login id of the user and KEY is the public ssh key (a long ASCII string). COMMENT is typically the user's email address. This string and approach to access and authentication is described here.

The repository was created with the command:

% svnadmin create repository --config-dir .

while logged in to secant.cs.purdue.edu as user cp-wiki in /homes/cp-wiki directory. (The “–config-dir .” option is to avoid an error message caused by the fact that user cp-wiki cannot access my home directory, where it is trying to read my non-existent personal configuration information.)

The initial repository contents, including templates for project1 and project2, were created using these commands; executed from my personal account on arthur (note that the .ssh key must be installed):

% mkdir tmp-repo
% cd tmp-repo
% mkdir project1 project2
% mkdir project1/branches project1/tags project1/trunk
% mkdir project2/branches project2/tags project2/trunk
% touch project1/trunk/project1.py
% touch project2/trunk/project2.py
% svn import svn+ssh://secant.cs.purdue.edu