Many developers like the Subversion revision control system. It provides enterprise-class centralized version control, including security – and that’s where complications can ensue. To secure access to a Subversion repository a project manager has to write access rules. If you want to grant access to particular directories and refuse access to other directories in the repository, you have to take care to write the rules in the right order. If there are a lot of users, divided into several groups and big repositories, the access control file is not easy to maintain by hand. SVN Access Manager helps you create and manage these access rules using a web interface, storing rules in a database and creating rule sets automatically. The software also lets you create projects and define the people responsible for them, which lets you delegate access right administration for a repository to the projects.
SVN Access Manager creator Thomas Krieger began the project more than two years ago to simplify managing his own Subversion repository access control files. Since then, he says, he has spent five to six months in developing the application, which is written in PHP. “For programming I use Eclipse together with Subversive and the PHPEclipse plugin,” he says.
The package includes a couple of scripts users sometimes overlook. A script that can be run as cron job automatically generates access files, while another automatically locks out users with expired passwords.
Krieger says in an upcoming version another developer working on the project plans to create a WebSVN plugin to make it possible to import existing Subversion access control files. Since Krieger has a day job as system administrator in a bank, he can’t estimate a release date for future versions, “but if there are bugs discovered I try to fix them as soon as possible.”
He also welcomes help with documentation “and to make more help texts available in English and German language. Users can also suggest new features via e-mail or the project’s forums.”