Any particular reason that you are using the svnserve rather than the http/dav setup?  I have found that it is much easier to use the apache webserver install to serve up subversion than to use the svnserve.  Then it is just an apache module, which gets around most of the issues with systemd. (Even the tutorial uses the apache module setup as a demo unit.)  I have the config files to do this with LDAP authentication for the DAV (for SL6x), which allows you to use the system authentication, and restrict it to a particular group membership, for multiple users.  These should be much the same for 7x.  Also, any reason for the external repo?  Subversion is a standard package in the main SL repo, though it is a few minor revisions older.

Jim

James Fait, Ph.D.
Senior Beamline Scientist
SER-CAT, Advanced Photon Source
Light When You Need It


-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Adam Jensen
Sent: Thursday, February 16, 2017 2:40 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Subversion svnserve set up

Hello,

I would like to set up a network accessible Subversion[1] repository.

[1]: https://subversion.apache.org/

It is a surprisingly elaborate process and I could use some guidance. This is what I have so far:

-- /etc/yum.repos.d/wandisco-svn.repo -- [WandiscoSVN] name=Wandisco SVN Repo baseurl=http://opensource.wandisco.com/centos/7/svn-1.9/RPMS/x86_64/
enabled=1
gpgcheck=0
--

$ yum list installed | grep subversion
subversion.x86_64                  1.9.5-1                 @WandiscoSVN         
subversion-devel.x86_64            1.9.5-1                 @WandiscoSVN         
subversion-perl.x86_64             1.9.5-1                 @WandiscoSVN         
subversion-tools.x86_64            1.9.5-1                 @WandiscoSVN  

-- /usr/lib/systemd/system/svnserve.service -- [Unit] Description=Subversion protocol daemon After=syslog.target network.target

[Service]
Type=forking
RuntimeDirectory=svnserve
PIDFile=/run/svnserve/svnserve.pid
EnvironmentFile=/etc/default/svnserve
ExecStart=/usr/bin/svnserve $DAEMON_ARGS ExecReload=/usr/bin/kill -s SIGHUP $MAINPID User=svn Group=svn KillMode=process Restart=on-failure

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Alias=svnserve.service
--

-- /etc/default/svnserve --
# svnserve options
DAEMON_ARGS="--daemon --pid-file /run/svnserve/svnserve.pid --root /home/svn --log-file /var/log/svnserve/svnserve.log"
--

# groupadd svn
# useradd -g svn svn

# mkdir /var/log/svnserve; chown svn:svn /var/log/svnserve

-- /etc/logrotate.d/svnserve --
/var/log/svnserve/*.log {
    daily
    missingok
    rotate 14
    compress
    notifempty
    create 640 svn adm
    sharedscripts
    postrotate
            if /usr/bin/systemctl status svnserve > /dev/null ; then \
                /usr/bin/systemctl restart svnserve > /dev/null; \
            fi;
    endscript
}
--

$ sudo -u svn svnadmin create /home/svn/projectA

$ sudo -u svn vi /home/svn/projectA/conf/svnserve.conf
$ sudo -u svn vi /home/svn/projectA/conf/passwd


********* PROBLEM ********* 

# systemctl start svnserve
Job for svnserve.service failed because the control process exited with error code. See "systemctl status svnserve.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details.

# systemctl status svnserve.service
● svnserve.service - Subversion protocol daemon
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/svnserve.service; disabled; vendor preset: disabled)
   Active: failed (Result: start-limit) since Thu 2017-02-16 15:33:31 EST; 1min 3s ago
  Process: 26808 ExecStart=/usr/bin/svnserve $DAEMON_ARGS (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)

Feb 16 15:33:31 minerva.bohemia.net systemd[1]: svnserve.service: control process exited, code=exited status=1 Feb 16 15:33:31 minerva.bohemia.net systemd[1]: Failed to start Subversion protocol daemon.
Feb 16 15:33:31 minerva.bohemia.net systemd[1]: Unit svnserve.service entered failed state.
Feb 16 15:33:31 minerva.bohemia.net systemd[1]: svnserve.service failed.
Feb 16 15:33:31 minerva.bohemia.net systemd[1]: svnserve.service holdoff time over, scheduling restart.
Feb 16 15:33:31 minerva.bohemia.net systemd[1]: start request repeated too quickly for svnserve.service Feb 16 15:33:31 minerva.bohemia.net systemd[1]: Failed to start Subversion protocol daemon.
Feb 16 15:33:31 minerva.bohemia.net systemd[1]: Unit svnserve.service entered failed state.
Feb 16 15:33:31 minerva.bohemia.net systemd[1]: svnserve.service failed.


Most of my experience is with FreeBSD/OpenBSD systems; I haven't worked with systemd much.

Any advice, suggestions, comments, references, etc. will be much appreciated.