It seems that if Subversion finds a .svn directory in any parent path up to the filesystem root, it requires access to the wc.db file or fails to perform a checkout operation.
The use-case that caused this is a system where parts of the filesystem are checked into an SVN repo for operational management with a checkout at the root. The permissions on the /.svn/ dir are such that only root can access them (file mode 0700.) However, this means users cannot perform checkout operations anywhere on the system, including their own homedirs. Subversion sees the /.svn/ directory, attempts to open /.svn/wc.db, is denied access, and refuses to perform the checkout as a result. There was an old thread from 2010 with a much too-broad solution of ignoring all the WC sanity checks here: http://svn.haxx.se/dev/archive-2010-02/0431.shtml Is there no other way to allow Subversion to gracefully ignore a working copy database it does not have access to and allow a user to perform a checkout? Right now the only work-around I have is to rename the .svn dir in the filesystem root, and every name it back every time I have to update or commit files. svn, version 1.8.9 (r1591380) Thanks for any suggestions, -- Josh
