On Tue, Jan 23, 2007 at 01:48:18AM -0500, Jean-Daniel Beaubien wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> Firstly, I know my question is a bit off-topic for this list...but I
> don't exactly trust the subversion mailing list to give me an
> objective view if subversion is safe or not.
>
> Basically I'd like to know what people think about having a svn
> repository on a web host like dreamhost.com
> (http://wiki.dreamhost.com/index.php/Svn).
>
> Is it safe if using svn+ssh? Or is it just basically a big no-no?
I've been using exactly that setup for a couple of years now; I can't
recall any vulnerabilities in that time.
Still, it depends on who you give access. SSH is pretty good at keeping
the bad people out, provided you use public keys and/or sensible
passwords. On a public-access server, I'd certainly look into ways of
getting it to chroot (which isn't all that difficult; force SSH logins
to use a particular suid wrapper program, or chroot the whole sshd, or
...).
However, there is no *other* source code control system I'd recommend
over Subversion in this regard. GNU CVS has been trouble-free for a
couple of years, but so has Subversion - and the GNU CVS code seems to
be rather messy. OpenCVS isn't really ready for prime-time yet, and very
new - so it's good to toy around with, but if being as secure as
possible is your goal...
In fact, this applies to most source code control I know of - while all
have their disadvantages, vulnerabilities seem to be rare. So I don't
think security is a major deciding factor in choosing Subversion over
some other system, or vice versa.
However, I'm inclined to say that the setup *is* important, on a web
host. I use Subversion for this exact purpose, using a single web site;
but if you are using multiple web sites, it might be a good idea to have
one uid per repository. This also allows people to write their own
hooks, which can be terribly useful.
Finally, bad passwords and SSH are a rather annoying combination. You
can force them to use Subversion and only Subversion after login, and
I'd recommend you do so.
Joachim
