From /etc/init.d/svnserve: # The commented variables in this file are the defaults that are used # in the init-script. You don't need to uncomment them except to # customize them to different values. [...] # User and group as which to run svnserve #SVNSERVE_USER="svn" #SVNSERVE_GROUP="svnusers" From /etc/init.d/svnserve init script: [...] --user ${SVNSERVE_USER:-apache} --group ${SVNSERVE_GROUP:-apache} -- \ [...] As you can see user and group are set to apache/apache in the init script and not to svn/svnusers as written in the header of the configuration file. Consequently this leads to an error on my system, as I have no apache user and the subversion ebuild doesn't create one: # /etc/init.d/svnserve start * Caching service dependencies ... [ ok ] * Starting svnserve ... * start-stop-daemon: user `apache' not found [ !! ] * ERROR: svnserve failed to start Reproducible: Always I think we should match the documentation and the actual behaviour.
This has been fixed in 1.7.2 and newer versions. I will keep this bug open for the records until a newer version becomes stable.
subversion-1.7.7 is stable now, so that version should be used instead. If you have issues with it, please open a new bug against it.
