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Installing Subversion on Windows

Shankaran — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 16:04:18 +0000

Subversion is an open-source version control system. It is used in production by many companies. There are other software products such as Collabnet that utilize this with it’s own features. It is supposed on windows, unix, and mac os x. Today we’re going to install Subversion on a windows environment.

THE FOLLOWING ARE THE SYSTEM SPECS I AM USING

Microsoft Windows 2008 x64 Enterprise Edition
1GB RAM
25GB HD space
Apache 2.2.11
Subversion 1.6.5

FILE PREREQUISITES

Apache 2.2.11 with open SSL support

Subversion 1.6.5

Now, I am using these specific versions that you can download and use. But if you want to get the latest versions, then you will want to go to the following sites.

http://httpd.apache.org/

http://subversion.apache.org/

FILE DIRECTORY LOCATIONS
Apache: E:\apache2.2
Subversion: E:\subversion
Repositories: E:\SVN
Password file: E:\subversion\subpass
Access permissions: e:\subversion\svn-acl

INSTALLATION

Install Apache
Install Subversion
Copy the following files from the E:\subversion\Bin directory to E:\apache2.2\modules
- mod_authz_svn.so
- mod_dav_svn.so

Edit E:\apache2.2\conf\httpd.conf

Uncomment the line

loadmodule dav_module

Add the following 2 lines in the same section

LoadModule  dav_svn_module modules/mod_dav_svn.so
LoadModule authz_svn_module modules/mod_authz_svn.so

Add the following to the end of the file

Create the directory for the repositories
- E:\SVN
Create a TEST project1
- svnadmin create e:\svn\project1
Add a test user to the project1 repository
- e:\apache2.2\bin\htpasswd -cm e:\subversion subpass test
- The first time you run this command you use -c because it creates the password file
- -m is the option that tells htpasswd command to use MD5 algorithm for encryption

Now create e:\subversion\svn-acl to hold access permissions

Add the following into this file

#
# specify groups here
#

[groups]
team1 = test

#
# team1 group has a read/write access to test repository
# all subdirectories
# all others have read access only
#

[test:/]
@team1 = rw
* = r

Now create e:\subversion\subversion.conf which will link subversion to apache


  DAV svn
  SVNPath e:/svn/project1

  AuthType Basic
  AuthName "Subversion test project repository"
  AuthUserFile e:/subversion/subpass

  Require valid-user

  AuthzSVNAccessFile e:/subversion/svn-acl

Restart Apache

Apache web server on windows, how to password protect directory

How to create multiple lines in a single cell in excel

admin — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 13:44:47 +0000

I’m sure there have been many times where you wanted to insert a line in an excel spreadsheet. In Word you were used to using shift+enter to give you a once space line. For excel it is different.

Use ALT + ENTER

Check for failed drive on HP-UX

Shankaran — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 13:43:34 +0000

I wanted to see if I had any failed drives on my HP-UX software raid mirrors. The command to use is.

vgdisplay -v

To narrow it down you can use

vgdisplay -v |grep -i “LV Status”

You should see a result of available/syncd if things are okay. available/stale means you got an issue.

Dell PowerConnect 6248 port monitor

UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME Blue screen

admin — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 13:22:57 +0000

The infamous blue screen of death (BSOD) is what appears when you turn on your computer. Immediately you suspect a hard drive failure or data loss. This is not necessarily true. Remember, a BSOD is given by windows. So it must have at least read the hard drive to get the BSOD to show. So what do we do to try and fix this error.

You need your Windows XP CD handy

Boot with Windows XP CD
After the CD loads, press R to repair
In the command prompt, enter chkdsk /r
When complete, type in exit and reboot

If this fails, then check out this software, getdataback for about $80. I’ve used it a few times, and it works wonders. But, you’re disk has to be somewhat accessible. My windows machine was unable to access the drive. Whenever you click on it in my computer, it says it needs to be formatted. So this software was able to restore my data.

Windows program crashes as soon as you run it

Free diskimage utility

Shankaran — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 15:00:53 +0000

If you’re a nerd, you are familiar with Symantec Ghost. There is a product out there that everything and more. PING. This software is a bootable Linux OS, and allows you to backup and restore partitions. You can do this locally, or from a network share. PXE and RIS environments are supported. Don’t worry if your hard drive is large. CD and DVD disk spanning is supported.

Definitely worth checking out. It’s here

How to list user’s domain group memberships

Shankaran — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 14:30:15 +0000

Today I had to figure out what domain groups a user was a part of. I had to find out if a particular user was part of a specific domain group or not, so that I could verify if that group was part of the server’s local administrators group. And if it wasn’t, then I would add that user specifically. Yeah I could explicitly list the user regardless, but I was looking for neatness and not redundancy of privileges. I didn’t have access to the Active Directory Users and Computers MMC so I need another way.

A great command line tool to know is GPRESULT.EXE. This tool querys the Resultant Set of Policy (RSoP). So what is RSoP? Glad you asked. Basically, this tool querys group policy settings. You can use this tool to see how group policy affects a certain user or certain machine. To run rsop, just run rsop from the command line or run line.

Now back to gpresult. Running just gpresult.exe will give you the list of options. If you are on the computer and logged in as the user you want to check the domain groups, then the only command you would need to run is gpresult /r

How to disable Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration (IE ESC) in Windows Server 2003/2008

Shankaran — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 19:56:47 +0000

Windows Server comes with Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration enabled by default for both users and administrators. It is annoying. Its purpose is to prevent scripts and certain content to decrease server threat. But having this enabled, you may see some web sites that fail to load. I personally disable this, because I don’t use my servers to browse the web. Well, I do, but only for testing say a web server on the local server.

To uninstall this in Windows 2003, do the following:

1) Goto Control Panel

2) Click Add or Remove Programs

3) Click Add Remove Windows Components

4) Uncheck Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration

5) Click Next

In 2008, you can disable it for users and/or administrators

1) Goto Server Manager

2) Look for Security Information on the right hand pane

3) Click on Configure IE ESC

5) Select users or administrators

6) Click Ok

Bypass recycle bin when deleting files

Shankaran — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:22:59 +0000

When you delete files in Windows XP, they go to the recycling bin. So are they really deleted? No, technically they are just moved. It’s kind of like a get me out of jail free card. So if you accidentally deleted a file that you needed, you can get it back. Of course, once you right click on the recycling bin and empty it, it’s gone… There are means to get files that have been emptied from the recycling bin back, but that’s a whole different discussion. So how do you actually delete files without dealing with the recycling bin?

Select the files or files that you want to delete, press and hold the shift key, and then simultaneously press the del key. By doing so, a popup will appear asking you to delete the files. That is it.

Microsoft Outlook 2007 Automatically Download Pictures

Shankaran — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:40:19 +0000

By default, Microsoft Outlook does not allow pictures in emails to automatically download. To enable pictures to automatically display, do the following in Outlook.

1) Tools Menu.

2) Select Trust Center.

3) Left hand pane select automatic download.

4) Uncheck Don’t download pictures automatically in HTML e-mail messages or RSS items.

5) Click Ok.

Backup firefox bookmarks

Shankaran — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:13:03 +0000

So you’re upgrading your computer, and you want to backup your Firefox backups. That, or you just want to back them up because you’ve had them for 4 years on the same computer and if you lose it, you lose all 4 years of your online life.

Backing up, and restoring, is EASY.

To this within firefox

1) Goto bookmarks toolbar.

2) Select organize bookmarks.

3) Click on import and backup.

4) Select Backup.

5) Choose a location and a file name.

6) Click OK

You will be ALL set.

You can also backup the contents of your bookmarks by navigating to your Firefox folder in windows explorer and manually back them up.

In Windows XP this will be located here
c:\documents and settings\USER NAME\application data\Mozilla\Profiles

In Windows 7 and Vista
C:\Users\USER NAME\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles

Note, you will need to be able to view hidden files and folders