Problem with svn: Cannot negotiate authentication mechanism

I have installed svn server on FreeBSD with sasl authentication. Here is config of my repository:

[general]
anon-access = none
auth-access = write
realm = project

[sasl]
use-sasl = true
min-encryption = 128
max-encryption = 256

I have face the challenge when I tried to “svn checkout” repository from the Fedora 8:

#svn checkout svn://192.168.1.5/project
#svn: Cannot negotiate authentication mechanism

In my case it means, that subversion was installed without Cyrus SASL authentication. You can check it:
#svn --version
svn, version 1.4.4 (r25188)
compiled Sep 2 2007, 14:30:15

Copyright (C) 2000-2006 CollabNet.
Subversion is open source software, see http://subversion.tigris.org/
This product includes software developed by CollabNet (http://www.Collab.Net/).
The following repository access (RA) modules are available:
* ra_dav : Module for accessing a repository via WebDAV (DeltaV) protocol.
- handles 'http' scheme
- handles 'https' scheme
* ra_svn : Module for accessing a repository using the svn network protocol.
- handles 'svn' scheme
* ra_local : Module for accessing a repository on local disk.
- handles 'file' scheme

Subversion with Cyrus SASL authentication available only from the 1.5 version
So, if you have subversion older version than 1.5 – “Cannot negotiate authentication mechanism“- you have to update subversion.
Fedora 8 is not supports anymore. And if you want use svn with Cyrus SASL authentication you have to upgrade Fedora or build rpm package with new version subversion.

Posted on July 27th, 2010 by admin
Filed under: Solutions