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Asked: 2026-05-10T14:35:15+00:00

When I try to do any svn command and supply the –username and/or –password

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When I try to do any svn command and supply the --username and/or --password options, it prompts me for my password anyways, and always will attempt to use my current user instead of the one specified by --username. Neither --no-auth-cache nor --non-interactive have any effect on this. This is a problem because I’m trying to call svn commands from a script, and I can’t have it show the prompt.

For example, logged in as user1:

# $ svn update --username 'user2' --password 'password' # user1@domain.com's password:

Other options work correctly:

# $ svn --version --quiet # 1.3.2

Why does it prompt me?
And why is it asking for user1’s password instead of user2’s?
I’m 99% sure all of my permissions are set correctly. Is there some config option for svn that switches off command-line passwords?
Or is it something else entirely?

I’m running svn 1.3.2 (r19776) on Fedora Core 5 (Bordeaux).

Here’s a list of my environment variables (with sensitive information X’ed out). None of them seem to apply to SVN:

# HOSTNAME=XXXXXX # TERM=xterm # SHELL=/bin/sh # HISTSIZE=1000 # KDE_NO_IPV6=1 # SSH_CLIENT=XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX XXXXX XX # QTDIR=/usr/lib/qt-3.3 # QTINC=/usr/lib/qt-3.3/include # SSH_TTY=/dev/pts/2 # USER=XXXXXX # LS_COLORS=no=00:fi=00:di=00;34:ln=00;36:pi=40;33:so=00;35:bd=40;33;01:cd=40;33;01:or=01;05;37;41:mi=01;05;37;41:ex=00;32:*.cmd=00;32:*.exe=00;32:*.com=00;32:*.btm=00;32:*.bat=00;32:*.sh=00;32:*.csh=00;32:*.tar=00;31:*.tgz=00;31:*.arj=00;31:*.taz=00;31:*.lzh=00;31:*.zip=00;31:*.z=00;31:*.Z=00;31:*.gz=00;31:*.bz2=00;31:*.bz=00;31:*.tz=00;31:*.rpm=00;31:*.cpio=00;31:*.jpg=00;35:*.gif=00;35:*.bmp=00;35:*.xbm=00;35:*.xpm=00;35:*.png=00;35:*.tif=00;35: # KDEDIR=/usr # MAIL=/var/spool/mail/XXXXXX # PATH=/usr/lib/qt-3.3/bin:/usr/kerberos/bin:/usr/local/bin:/bin:/usr/bin # INPUTRC=/etc/inputrc # PWD=/home/users/XXXXXX/my_repository # KDE_IS_PRELINKED=1 # LANG=en_US.UTF-8 # SSH_ASKPASS=/usr/libexec/openssh/gnome-ssh-askpass # SHLVL=1 # HOME=/home/users/XXXXXX # LOGNAME=XXXXXX # QTLIB=/usr/lib/qt-3.3/lib # CVS_RSH=ssh # SSH_CONNECTION=69.202.73.122 60998 216.7.19.47 22 # LESSOPEN=|/usr/bin/lesspipe.sh %s # G_BROKEN_FILENAMES=1 # _=/bin/env # OLDPWD=/home/users/XXXXXX
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1 Answer

  1. The prompt you’re getting doesn’t look like Subversion asking you for a password, it looks like ssh asking for a password. So my guess is that you have checked out an svn+ssh:// checkout, not an svn:// or http:// or https:// checkout.

    IIRC all the options you’re trying only work for the svn/http/https checkouts. Can you run svn info to confirm what kind of repository you are using ?

    If you are using ssh, you should set up key-based authentication so that your scripts will work without prompting for a password.

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