Subversion web development question.

[Greg Groth]

 > Why would you need to be root?  Here's what we do at work:

Because /usr/local/www/apache22/data is owned by root.  I guess I 
mistakenly figured that this is where the files should go.  I know that 
you can configure Apache to point to any directory, but was unsure of 
the consequences of pointing it at directories outside of 
/usr/local/www/apache22/data.

 >
 > The development server is at the data center (since we're all remote).
 > Apache has been configured to run several name based virtual servers and
 > looks for the document root in a 'cpr' in our home directory. (cpr is
 > the initials of our project)
 >
 > For those of us that like the CLI and working directly on the server,
 > the 'cpr' directory is also our subversion working directory.  So I edit
 > a file, test it, like it, commit it. repeat.
 >
 > Our designers don't like CLI.  What we've done for them is to set them
 > up with TortioseSVN on their workstations.  They check out the
 > repository on their desktop.  They make changes.  When they want to
 > test, they run rsync (via cygwin and a shell script) that syncs only the
 > files they've changed (and skips all the .svn sub dirs) up to the
 > server.  They test.  They like, they commit using TortioseSVN.  All of
 > thise happens over a SSH tunnel.
 >
 > At no point in any of this do any of us need to be root....
 >
 > If you can get your dev environment running locally it will be easier
 > since you won't have to "upload to test", but depending on your
 > situation that might not be reasonable.
 >
 > -philip

What you suggest makes perfect sense, I wasn't sure if you could point 
Apache directly at a directory within Subversion's structure or not. I 
do have one more question.  From a security standpoint would it be safer 
to point to a symlink within Apache's existing directory structure that 
points to /usr/home/svnDirectory, or configure Apache to point directly 
to /usr/home/svnDirectory?  It's probably a moot point, but I'm still 
unsure of myself when it comes to messing around with permissions within 
FreeBSD and don't like making changes to the defaults without asking first.

Many thanks,
Greg Groth