Build and Deploy SVN Apps on Kubernetes

TL;DR: SVN is an open source version control system with a centralised server. Building a continuous integration and deployment pipeline can be a bit hectic for SVN repos. This blogs cover the easiest possible solution for building a CI/CD pipeline for Kubernetes to deploy SVN apps.

a year ago   •   5 min read

By Pawan Mehta
In this article

SVN or subversion is an open-source version control system which has a centralized server unlike git which is a distributed version control system. It tracks changes to files and directories, allows collaboration among users, supports branching and merging, and provides access control. While less popular than Git, SVN is still used in organizations with established infrastructure or specific needs. The main factor which differentiates svn from git is that it allows granular access control due to which it is widely used by enterprises.

What does granular access control mean?

SVN provides fine-grained access control at the repository level, allowing administrators to set permissions for individual users or groups. Access rules can be defined based on specific files and directories within the repository.

Git, by default, lacks built-in granular access control mechanisms. However, hosting platforms like GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket offer features to set permissions at the repository, branch, or file level, allowing for fine-grained access control.

In summary, SVN has built-in granular access control, while Git relies on external tools and hosting platforms to achieve fine-grained access control.

Deploy an SVN application using Devtron

While most modern CI/CD platforms do not provide native support for SVN, Devtron offers an alternative approach. Devtron, an open-source continuous delivery platform primarily focused on Git repositories, provides a Helm chart that allows you to synchronize SVN repository with Git. This Helm chart enables the syncing of code changes from SVN to Git, leveraging the benefits and features of Devtron's CI/CD workflows. By utilizing the SVN-to-Git synchronization capability in Devtron, organizations with existing SVN infrastructure can seamlessly integrate their SVN-based applications into the Devtron platform, benefiting from its advanced deployment and automation functionalities.

Pre-requisites

  1. SVN repository url should be accessible from Devtron
  2. A new git repository
  3. Credentials which can read/clone complete svn repository
  4. Credentials which can read/write to git repository

Deploy svn-git-sync helm chart

Step-1: Go to chart store on Devtron UI and search for svn-git-sync. Click on chart from devtron repo and then click configure and deploy. It will open the default values.yaml for you to edit.

svn-git-sync chart on devtron
svn-git-sync chart on devtron

Step-2: Update the values in the chart. Replace the repository urls as well as credentials with your own  and click deploy chart.

Values.yaml for svn-git-sync chart
Values.yaml for svn-git-sync chart

Step-3: Once you click deploy chart, it'll create a pod which will clone your svn repository and push it's content including all branches to the new git repository that you have created. It'll also sync commit authors from svn commits to commits on git repository.

svn-git-sync chart deployed and sync started
svn-git-sync chart deployed and sync started

Step-4: You can click on logs to check the live status of sync, it'll also keep checking for all the latest commits on your svn repository and keep syncing it with the git repository so that you don't have to worry about switching your development team from svn to git.

Live sync of svn repository to git
Live sync of svn repository to git

Step-5: You can check your git repository, it should have your latest source code as well as all your branches of svn.

Source code that we got from svn repository in git repository
Source code that we got from svn repository in git repository

That's it! Now that you have your svn repository synced to git, you can now start deploying your application using the git repository from devtron.

Creating CI/CD Pipeline for the SVN Application

Step-1: To deploy your application using devtron, you can read documentation for creating a new application on devtron docs. Make sure you have added credentials for git account in global configurations which has the read access to the source code repository where the svn source code is synced.

Step-2: Once you create the application, configure the git repository in the application and select the git account which has access to the git repository:

Git repository configuration in devtron app
Git repository configuration in devtron app

Step-3: Complete the steps of configuring the application including the CI/CD workflow. For demo purpose, our workflow is configured with dev branch and both CI as well as CD are set to automatic which means as soon as we get new commits in our git repository, it'll automatically start a new build and deployment will be initiated once the build gets completed.

CI CD Workflow of svn-git repository
CI CD Workflow of svn-git repository

Step-4: Now go to Build and Deploy page, select the commit from which you want to trigger the first build and click Start Build.

Select commit to trigger a new build
Select commit to trigger a new build

Step-5: Once the build starts, you can click on details to check live logs of your build.

Build showing live logs on devtron UI
Build showing live logs on devtron UI

Step-6: Deployment is triggered automatically once the build completes and your application will be deployed within few minutes.

Deployment initiated on devtron UI
Deployment initiated on devtron UI

Step-7: You can click details on deployment step same as build step to check real time status of deployment of your application. It'll also show you the resources created by the deployment in app details page.

App details page after deployment
App details page after deployment

Congratulations! you have successfully deployed an application with source code in svn repository utilizing the modern CI/CD provided by Devtron.

Conclusion

In this article we learned about how you can sync the SVN repository with Git repository using helm chart and how easily one can create a CI/CD pipeline for Kubernetes and deploy the SVN application with a ease.

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