Basically everything is the same as any other windows operating system. However I did run into a couple of “snags” that would be good to share with everyone.

The basic procedure is:

• Install SVN as documented on the using any of the windows installers listed.
• Create a new repository using the command line.
• Edit the svnserve.conf and passwd files to setup users and passwords.
• Then create a windows service to run it on startup.

All was well until I hit the last step, creating the windows service. When I attempted to create it on the command line I immediately received a “Access Denied.” message. So I say to myself, “I am an administrator right?” I check to make sure…and what do you know I am an administrator. So what was the problem?

This is the first reason for this post. Apparently to run a command prompt as administrator you must go to Start – All Programs – Accessories and right click on Command Prompt and choose administrator. Now, I’ll admit I don’t really know anything about Windows Vista or user account security, but come on, my account is part of the Administrators group…anyway moving on. Using the same command in the new command prompt gave the ever elusive SUCCESS message.

So after getting the service created (Why isn’t there a GUI tool that can create a service prepackaged with windows?) I attempt to connect to the svn server using its IP which yields: “Can’t connect to host box_ip: No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it.” At first I figure, “Well its probably the firewall blocking the port.” (the svn:// protocol uses TCP) So I go to the firewall and open the default port thats in the documentation, 3690 I think and try to connect again and get the same error…

This problem was the second reason for this post. Basically when the SVN server starts it binds itself to a port and IP. I found some random that stated that SVN might bind to a IPv6 address instead of the IPv4 address I was attempting to use. I’m not sure if this was the real problem or not but here are the test results:

So given these test results I decided to do what the above post suggested: in the creation of the windows service add the –listen-host box_ip and –listen-port 3690 parameters to the command. After doing so, this allowed both cmd and eclipse/subclipse to connect to the svn server using the IP.

The parameters also made localhost on the command line stop working. This was “OK” in my case because the server has a static IP. Really one should use a DNS name, but I’m too lazy to setup a DNS server…