For what it's worth, I have run into the same problem and the only solution I have found is to switch to a different access method. As best as I can tell svnserve is simply not an option when trying to set up a repository with path based authentication when select areas are flagged inaccessible to anonymous users. I have recently switched from a svnserve to apache based setup and using the exact same authz-db file, svnserve failed to return "svn log" results for protected paths while apache worked correctly.
The below issue on the SVN tracker I think refers to this issue and it has been open since Oct. 2009: http://subversion.tigris.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=3516 Anyway, I could be totally wrong here, but I do not think what you want to do is possible with svnserve. I hope I am mistaken, but if not, sorry to be the bearer of bad news. On Thu, Feb 10, 2011 at 9:30 PM, Victor Sudakov <suda...@sibptus.tomsk.ru> wrote: > The problem is probably in the following. When anon-access is other > than "none", svnserve does not request authentication for some > important operations like "svn log", and I have found no way to force > it to request authentication. This effectively breaks path based > authorization. > > I have found some tricky solutions for the http access method (like > defining two aliases for the same repository), but none for the > svnserve method. Any help? > > Victor Sudakov wrote: >> >> I am trying to setup the following policy: a private repository with >> some public paths. Is such configuration supported at all? >> >> The following configuration: >> >> ========== conf/svnserve.conf: >> anon-access = read >> auth-access = write >> authz-db = authz >> >> ========== conf/authz: >> [/] >> @noc = rw >> >> [/foo] >> $anonymous = r >> $authenticated = rw >> >> does not work. A valid user from the noc group receives the following reply: >> >> $ svn diff -c2237 www.txt >> svn: Unreadable path encountered; access denied >> >> If I change "anon-access = read" to "anon-access = none", it begins to >> work for the valid user, but there is no anonymous access to anyone >> even to svn://myserver/foo despite the "$anonymous = r" clause. >> >> What am I doing wrong? >> >> -- >> Victor Sudakov, VAS4-RIPE, VAS47-RIPN >> sip:suda...@sibptus.tomsk.ru > > -- > Victor Sudakov, VAS4-RIPE, VAS47-RIPN > sip:suda...@sibptus.tomsk.ru >