SVN repository on bluehost

[roysharon]

Well, I managed to workaround this by adding both the --disable-mod-activation and --with-apache-libexecdir parameters to the ./configure command line:

./configure --prefix=$HOME --without-berkeley-db LDFLAGS="-L/lib64" --with-ssl --disable-mod-activation --with-apache-libexecdir=[some dir]

Note to change [some dir] to an existing dir that you have permissions to write to. It can't be /dev/null.

This will enable the installation to complete, without of course adding the mod to apache. So now I have a working svn, but I cannot access it through http.

AFAIK, the only possible remote access to this svn is now via svn+ssh. I can run svnserve as a daemon, but for some reason I cannot access it remotely, and also it is being automatically killed after 5 minutes of inactivity by BH.

All in all, today was the first time I got concerned whether BlueHost was the right choice for me in the first place. :-(

[cesto]

this thread seems to have various topics going on.

has anyone had any luck getting this to work with subclipse? i'm still unable to get this to work. any help would be much appreciated since a solution is needed ASAP!

thanks in advance!

[roysharon]

Okay, more news: I now have a working svn server on my domain at BlueHost. Here is what I needed to do:

1. Install svn using the workaround from my previous post (2 posts up).
2. Create a repository (mkdir to create the directory, and then svnadmin create).
3. Upgrade to a dedicated IP plan (costs money). This is needed so you can run the svn daemon without it being ripped off by the ripper after 10 minutes of inactivity.
4. Request BH support to open at the firewall port 3690 both IN and OUT. This is the default port used by svn to allow remote access. You can direct the daemon to use a different port, but why bother?
5. Enter SSH, and type

   svnserve -d -r [path to the repository]

That's it. Now you can access it remotely via any client using the url svn://[your domain]/

Took me about two days to reach this stage, but I'm finally here! :-)

[roysharon]

One last bit of information:

How do we make the svnserve to run as a daemon again after a reboot of the system?

It turns out that currently on BlueHost hosting there is no way to specify an automatic launching of a specific program after restart. After consulting BH support I learned that:

It appears that there is an internal project to determine whether adding this functionality to the cPanel tool would be desirable and feasible. It is under review, but I don't have any way at this time to know whether it will be approved or the time frame that would be required for implementation if it is approved.

So to solve the problem I resorted to a quick and dirty method: I've added a cron job that starts the svnserve each minute. If the svnserve is already running, then the port it uses (3690) will be already captured and the new svnserve will fail with an error message (which is siletly discarded by cron). To add a cron job you can use the cpanel module (on the front page).

I did some testing and this solution seems to work just fine.

[cesto]

once last shot...

anyone get this working with subclipse? i don't want to have to switch hosting accounts.

[atobe]

Okay, more news: I now have a working svn server on my domain at BlueHost. Here is what I needed to do:

1. Install svn using the workaround from my previous post (2 posts up).
2. Create a repository (mkdir to create the directory, and then svnadmin create).
3. Upgrade to a dedicated IP plan (costs money). This is needed so you can run the svn daemon without it being ripped off by the ripper after 10 minutes of inactivity.
4. Request BH support to open at the firewall port 3690 both IN and OUT. This is the default port used by svn to allow remote access. You can direct the daemon to use a different port, but why bother?
5. Enter SSH, and type

   svnserve -d -r [path to the repository]

That's it. Now you can access it remotely via any client using the url svn://[your domain]/

Took me about two days to reach this stage, but I'm finally here! :-)

So if I dont open 3690 ports, I cant access it from my PC?

[jjinking]

Just thought I'd update this thread with the steps that worked for me. We just got a new hosting account with Bluehost yesterday. The following steps worked for me. Please note that the software that I used may not be the latest versions.

mkdir subversion_src
cd subversion_src/
wget http://www.gtlib.gatech.edu/pub/apache/apr/apr-1.4.2.tar.gz
wget http://www.gtlib.gatech.edu/pub/apache/apr/apr-util-1.3.9.tar.gz
wget http://subversion.tigris.org/downloads/subversion-1.6.9.tar.gz
wget http://www.webdav.org/neon/neon-0.29.3.tar.gz
wget http://www.sqlite.org/sqlite-amalgamation-3.6.22.tar.gz

tar -xzf apr-util-1.3.9.tar.gz 
tar -xzf apr-1.4.2.tar.gz 
tar -xzf subversion-1.6.9.tar.gz 
tar -xzf neon-0.29.3.tar.gz 
tar -xzvf sqlite-amalgamation-3.6.22.tar.gz 

cd apr-1.4.2
./configure --prefix=$HOME LDFLAGS="-L/lib64"
make
make install

cd ../apr-util-1.3.9
./configure --prefix=$HOME --with-apr=$HOME LDFLAGS="-L/lib64"
make
make install

cd ../neon-0.29.3
./configure --enable-shared --prefix=$HOME LDFLAGS="-L/lib64"
make
make install

cd ../sqlite-3.6.22/
mkdir ~/subversion_src/subversion-1.6.9/sqlite-amalgamation
cp sqlite3.c ~/subversion_src/subversion-1.6.9/sqlite-amalgamation/

cd ../subversion-1.6.9
./configure --with-apr=$HOME --prefix=$HOME --without-berkeley-db --without-apxs --without-apache --with-zlib=/usr --with-ssl LDFLAGS="-L/lib64" --disable-mod-activation
make
make install

[davidm777]

That's about right. Because we are using common IPs per site (unless you buy an IP), ports aren't as freely-random as one might expect (although this seems very fair to me - inexpensive accounts are bound to have some limitations... that's how they're made inexpensive!).

The only ports that are freely open OUTBOUND are 22, 80, and 443. Unless you want to 'hijack' one of those ports, you'll need to buy an IP and ask BlueHost to open port 3690.

So in my situation, I only need periodic SVN access. Further, I really only want to UPDATE my hosted site. So I have my home router redirect port 443 to 3690 on my SVN server. Then I can export/checkout, after which I close or redirect the port again. In theory, if you wanted svnserver to work on your BlueHost account, you'd need to have port 22, 80, or 443 get 'hijacked' by svnserver. As you can tell by the port #s, this is probably a bad idea :-)

Hope that helps a little,
David

So if I dont open 3690 ports, I cant access it from my PC?

[dborges]

Are we allowed to use Bluehost as a SVN/Git repository?

Section 9. 15. in the terms makes me think we aren't...
Backup Storage. BlueHost.Com offers its Services to host web sites, not to store data. Using an account as an online storage space for archiving electronic files is prohibited and will result in termination of hosting services without prior notice.

Has anyone been shut down for doing this?

[chris_d]

Here's an updated SVN install script with the latest versions of the included libraries. This worked for me today, though I will point out that I'm only using the SVN client.

mkdir ~/subversion_src
cd ~/subversion_src/
# check latest version at http://apr.apache.org/download.cgi
wget http://www.gtlib.gatech.edu/pub/apache/apr/apr-1.4.5.tar.gz
wget http://www.gtlib.gatech.edu/pub/apache/apr/apr-util-1.3.12.tar.gz
# check latest version at http://subversion.apache.org/download/
wget http://subversion.tigris.org/downloads/subversion-1.6.17.tar.gz
# check latest version at http://www.webdav.org/neon/
wget http://www.webdav.org/neon/neon-0.29.6.tar.gz
# check latest version at http://www.sqlite.org/download.html
wget http://www.sqlite.org/sqlite-autoconf-3070603.tar.gz

tar -xzf apr-util-1.3.12.tar.gz
tar -xzf apr-1.4.5.tar.gz
tar -xzf subversion-1.6.17.tar.gz
tar -xzf neon-0.29.6.tar.gz
tar -xzvf sqlite-autoconf-3070603.tar.gz

cd apr-1.4.5
./configure --prefix=$HOME LDFLAGS="-L/lib64"
make
make install

cd ../apr-util-1.3.12
./configure --prefix=$HOME --with-apr=$HOME LDFLAGS="-L/lib64"
make
make install

cd ../neon-0.29.6
./configure --enable-shared --with-ssl --prefix=$HOME LDFLAGS="-L/lib64"
make
make install

cd ../sqlite-autoconf-3070603/
mkdir ~/subversion_src/subversion-1.6.17/sqlite-amalgamation
cp sqlite3.c ~/subversion_src/subversion-1.6.17/sqlite-amalgamation/

cd ../subversion-1.6.17
./configure --with-apr=$HOME --prefix=$HOME --without-berkeley-db --without-apxs --with-zlib=/usr --with-ssl LDFLAGS="-L/lib64" --disable-mod-activation
make
make install

This also improves on the previously posted code by enabling SSL repository support.