Tortoise SVN and Windows Server 2008 issue – Access Denied!

Hello Friends,

My Friend Sandeep Kumar Gupta and I were facing a problem since a few days. It was related to taking latest for our solution using Tortoise SVN.

Challenge:

Whenever we tried to do any activity, say take SVN Update, or Tortoise SVN Cleanup or anything else, it gave us an error! It works fine in Windows 2003, then why not in Windows 2008? The error that we got was as follows:

We tried to find solution on Net. And this is what we got!

Understanding:

We all know, that from Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 and onwards, Microsoft has introduced a functionality called UAC — User Access Control.  Whenever we open a program, it asks us for an administrative access many a times right? This is because of UAC.

To know more about it, please refer to the following links:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-xm/windows-vista/What-is-User-Account-Control

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_Account_Control

Now, even for Tortoise SVN, it requires Administrative Access, but does it ask us when we do any SVN related operations? NO. So, we need to make sure, that the user account under which the current operation is being performed by the Tortoise SVN, is an Administrator, and has sufficient rights on the Directory, which we are performing the SVN operation.

Mind well, the first time SVN activity (i.e. SVN Checkout) will be performed effortlessly and without any issue, the issue comes after those directories are available in Local Machine and when we want to make changes, those directories do not have sufficient rights.

Things we tried which didn’t workout:

After reading this, we went to the respective directory, and tried giving full rights to the currently logged in user!

Directory -> Right-Click -> Properties -> Security Tab -> Add -> Find User -> Full Control

So, on that directory, the user got Full Control now. And we even tested that, we tried SVN Update using tortoise SVN, and it gave us error for an interior directory!!

So one level of success, we can say! 🙂

Next, we went to Directory Properties -> Advanced -> Select User -> Full Control -> Select [Check box] Replace all child permissions with inheritable permissions from this object.

And what we got was “Access is Denied”

We also read on a link, that nevermind even if it gives Access is Denied, press continue and the permissions will flow. But unfortunately for us, it didn’t. 🙁

Also, even if you are a part of the Group of Administrators, you may not have access to perform certain functions and that’s why you are asked for Administrative Access sometimes.

Solution:

We went to the main parent directory.

Right-Click -> Security Tab -> Advanced Option -> Owner Tab -> Added the Currently Logged in user as an Owner.

+ Selected the Check box Replace all child permissions with inheritable permissions from this object.

Next, we did Directory Properties, Security Tab -> Advanced Option -> Select User -> Full Control -> Selected [Check box] Replace all child permissions with inheritable permissions from this object.

And Bingo!!

It was done and successfully working!

References:

1. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/251109/tortoisesvn-and-windows-server-2008-user-account-control

2. http://www.svnforum.org/threads/38112-svn-entries-read-write-Access-is-denied

3. http://serverfault.com/questions/192748/error-applying-security-access-is-denied-while-changing-file-permissions-on

4. http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1637631

Hope this article helps you if you face similar issue!

Happy Flowing Permissions! 🙂