Question

Occasionally, when I update with svn, it asks the password for the ssh at the beginning, then updates a bunch of files, then asks it stops and asks it again to continue. What exactly is the reason for this ?

Answer 1

From Version control with subversion:

When using svn+ssh:// URLs to access a repository, remember that it’s the ssh program prompting for authentication, and not the svn client program. That means there’s no automatic password-caching going on (see the section called “Client Credentials Caching”). The Subversion client often makes multiple connections to the repository, though users don’t normally notice this due to the password caching feature. When using svn+ssh:// URLs, however, users may be annoyed by ssh repeatedly asking for a password for every outbound connection. The solution is to use a separate SSH password-caching tool such as ssh-agent on a Unix-like system, or pageant on Windows.