Hi, after upgrading to 1.7.x i've noticed some bug in svn lock machinery. here's a reduced testcase with local repo.
1). create from root a repo and change owner/mod to svnadmin.svnusers. # svnadmin create test.svn # chown -R svnadmin.svnusers test.svn # chmod g+ws test.svn/db -R 2). from user that belongs to svnusers group try to do this: $ svn co file://<$fullpath>/test.svn test.wc Checked out revision 0. $ cd test.wc $ touch file $ svn add file A file $ svn ci file -m 'dropin' Adding file Transmitting file data . Committed revision 1. $ svn lock file svn: E000001: Can't set permissions on '/home/users/pawels/bugs/test.svn/db' svn: E000001: Can't set permissions on '/home/users/pawels/bugs/test.svn/db': Operation not permitted the strace shows that svn tries to chmod() on db directory. (...) chmod("/home/users/pawels/bugs/test.svn/db", 02755) = -1 EPERM (Operation not permitted) (...)