Create SVN server with Webfaction and TortoiseSVN

First you should have an account at Webfaction.

Go to http://www.webfaction.com/ and register an account.

Notes: Even if this is a paid account but the server it provides is more than your imagination. You can create tons of website, SVN servers and many others. Go to its website for more information.

After you got an account, go to https://my.webfaction.com/ and login with your registered username and password.

By logging in, we should see a long list of menu in the left.

Go to menu Domain/Website and click on menu Applications.

Click Add new application button on the top.

A new info window should have appeared, we fill in the information as below:

  • Name: projectsvn (or any name you prefer)
  • App Category: Subversion
  • App Type: Subversion
  • Extra info: anonymous_read (for testing purpose, after the testing phase, go back and change this one to blank)

Click Add application

Now go to website section under Domain/Website menu.

It should show at least your free provided website with format:

username.webfactional.com

For demonstration, I will use lamtai.webfactional.com as my website URL.

Click on this website, a new info section should have appeared.

Click Add a web app button. Click Reuse an existing web app.

Find the subversion application we just create and select it.

Under URL textbox, type the sub URL for this application after the lamtai.webfactional.com/. In my case, I will set it as projectsvn
Click Add app button.

So the full link to go to my SVN will be http://lamtai.webfactional.com/projectsvn

Now try to access your SVN link, if the page appear that projectsvn- Revision 0: / then it means our SVN server has setup successfully.

Now to set up users and passwords for our SVN, we need a SSH session.

I use putty SSH as it is very easy to use.

Go to http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html

Then download putty.exe and run it (no installation is needed).

For Host name (or IP address), type the IP address that you can find under Setting section of menu Account in Webfaction Dashboard, then click Open.

Login as you webFaction WebFaction username and SSH password. To set, delete or modify SSH password, we go to menu Change SSH/FTP password in Webfaction Dashboard.

After login to SSH WebFaction, now we need to go to our SVN folder.

Enter: cd ~/webapps/projectsvn (substitute projectsvn to your SVN name)

To add new user, let’s use this patterns:

  • Enter htpasswd .htpasswd username, where username is the the user, and press Enter. A password prompt appears.
  • Enter the new password and press Enter.

After you have finished adding all your group member. Now we need TortoiseSVN to control our SVN.

Go to and download TortoiseSVN at: http://tortoisesvn.net/downloads.html

After download, install this application in your computer.

To set up Tortoise in own computer, we follow the following step:

1. Create new folder (testsvn) for the files to be uploaded into svn  *(testsvn) can be swapped for whatever name you like.

2. Right click the testvn folder. Click on svncheckout. Under Repository: URL of repository: enter your svn hosting server (http://brian.webfactional.com/projectsvn) in this case. Make sure that under the checkout directory, it shoud be something like D:\whateverfolder\projectsvn. Highlighted part must match the folder directory created. Click “OK” once done.

3. Now you can add files to the folder and do the necessary Update and Commit to the files.

That’s all 😀