Sunday, March 17, 2013

Content Management System: CollabNet Subversion Edge

Posted by Thirunavukkarasu Muthuswamy at Sunday, March 17, 2013 Labels: Subversion, Version Control System

What is Content Management System ?
A Content Management System (CMS) is a computer program that allows publishing, editing and modifying content as well as maintenance from a central interface. Such systems of content management provide procedures to manage workflow in a collaborative environment. These procedures can be manual steps or an automated cascade.

What is CollabNet Subversion Edge ?
• CollabNet Subversion Edge provides a powerful web-based management console to install, operate and manage Subversion repositories on your Apache server.
• Subversion Edge includes a complete software stack of Apache, Subversion and ViewVC as well as a powerful web-based user interface for managing the server. The Subversion Edge project is located at https://ctf.open.collab.net/sf/projects/svnedge/.

How to Set up CollabNet Subversion Edge in Linux ?
• Setting up CollabNet Subversion Edge involves installing it and configuring the Apache server using the web management console.
1] Install Subversion Edge
For Windows, there's an installer, and for Linux and Solaris, there's a tar.gz file you'll need to unpack.
2] Configure the server
Once the installation is done, you need to set up the Apache server that hosts the Subversion repositories.
3] Upgrade Subversion Edge
Updates give you the latest fixes and enhancements to Subversion Edge, as well as the underlying native components such as Apache, Subversion and ViewVC.

1] Install Subversion Edge on Linux:
• The Linux distribution is a tar.gz archive. Expand it to the location where you want to install.
1.Prepare the server by installing the required software.
–Install a Java 6 JRE. The Sun/Oracle JRE is recommended.
–Set the JAVA_HOME environment variable, and point it to your Java 6 JRE home. For example: export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.6.0-sun
–In case you do not have Python already, install it.
2.Switch to the parent directory where you want to install Subversion Edge.
–cd /optional/
3.Get the installer from http://www.collab.net/svnedge.
4.Unpack the installer. Note: Make sure you extract the package as a non-root user.
–tar -zxf CollabNetSubversionEdge-1.1.0_linux-x86.tar.gz
5.The tar.gz file is unpacked to the csvn directory. Tip: You can rename the folder to whatever you want using the "mv" command.
6.Run the application. Note: You must run the application as a non-root user.

–cd csvn

–bin/csvn start

7.It'll take a minute for the application to start. You should be able to access it from a web browser at http://hostname:3343/csvn.
8.Log into management console with these default administrator credentials.
–Username: admin
–Password: admin
9.Next, you need to configure the Apache server via the console.

Subversion Edge Download Page:

Starting , Stopping , Status checking of CSVN Apache Web Server:
[thiru@localhost bin]$ ./csvn
Usage: ./csvn { console | start | stop | restart | condrestart | status | install | remove | dump }
[thiru@localhost bin]$ ./csvn start
Starting CSVN Console......
CSVN Console started
Waiting for application to initialize (this may take a minute)...........................
CSVN Console is ready at http://localhost:3343/csvn
[thiru@localhost bin]$ ./csvn status
CSVN Console is running (PID:14125, Wrapper:STARTED, Java:STARTED)
[thiru@localhost bin]$ ./csvn stop
Stopping CSVN Console...
Waiting for CSVN Console to exit...
Waiting for CSVN Console to exit...
Stopped CSVN Console.

2] Configure the server
• Once the installation is done, you need to set up the Apache server that hosts the Subversion repositories.
• Administrators with the ROLE_ADMIN or ROLE_ADMIN_SYSTEM role can configure the server.
1.Configure general server settings
The Apache configuration files get written based on the information you provide in the web console. You don't need a direct login to the host server operating system.
2.Configure authentication settings
Specify how you want to authenticate your Subversion Edge installation. You can authenticate against a local htpasswd file or against a corporate LDAP server.
3.Configure a proxy server If your Subversion Edge server requires a proxy for outbound connections, provide its configuration in the web console.
4.Configure the mail server
To receive email notifications from the Subversion Edge server, set up the mail server with the details of your corporate email server. When a scheduled background job encounters a problem, an email with information from the error is sent to different accounts depending on the situation.
5.Configure log settings Specify logging levels for the Subversion server and console, and how long you want to keep the logs.

i] Configure General Server Settings
[thiru@localhost conf]$ cat csvn_main_httpd.conf
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE IT WILL BE REGENERATED AUTOMATICALLY BY SUBVERSION EDGE
# If you must make a change to the contents of this file then copy and paste the
# content into the httpd.conf file and comment out the Include statement for
# this file. The httpd.conf file is not modified or generated and is safe for
# you to modify.
ServerAdmin "devnull@collab.net"
ServerName "localhost:18080"
Listen 18080
User thiru
Group addmingrp
PidFile "/opt/grd/csvn/data/run/httpd.pid"
<AuthnProviderAlias file csvn-file-users>
AuthUserFile "/opt/grd/csvn/data/conf/svn_auth_file"
</AuthnProviderAlias>

ii] Configure authentication settings

3] Upgrade Sub-Version Edge
• When updates are available, you will see a notification.
1.To get new updates, so one of the following:
- Click the download link in the message about available updates.
- Select Administration in the main navigation bar and click Software Updates.
2.In the Software Updates page, click Install Updates. You will see the progress of your upgrade. When the Subversion Edge packages are downloaded and the upgrade can be applied, you will see a Restart Server option.
3.Click Restart Server to complete the upgrade. You should see a message that your updates were installed successfully.