Explaining svn / apache permissions error? (I know "how" but not "why")

Question

I have the following error occurring on occasion when trying to do an svn switch (have it set up to do via a web request):

svn: Can't open file '/root/.subversion/servers': Permission denied

This happens after an apache httpd.conf change and corresponding restart.

How to fix this?  I can get it to fix by doing an apache restart - BUT, it often takes multiple tries.  Curious if anybody can explain this. Why did this error go away on my 8th apache restart, but not on the prior ones (with no edits to the conf file)?

Basically, I kind of have a "how" in terms of solving this, but I don't have a "why" . . .

runlevelsix · Answer

My first guess is that SVN is being run as root while Apache is not.  Just curious, if you restart Apache using sudo does the error continue to occur?

sudo /etc/init.d/httpd stop
sudo /etc/init.d/httpd start

This sounds a bit like a problem found on StackOverflow ("Running subversion under apache and mod_python").  Perhaps you could review that and see if the solution to that problem (setting the $HOME environment variable prior to starting Apache) applies to your setup.

Explaining svn / apache permissions error? (I know "how" but not "why")

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