There are two more variables to set in the svnserve.conf file: they determine what unauthenticated (anonymous) and authenticated users are allowed to do. The variables anon-access and auth-access can be set to the values none, read, or write. Setting the value to none prohibits both reading and writing; read allows read-only access to the repository, and write allows complete read/write access to the repository. For example:

[general]
password-db = userfile
realm = example realm

# anonymous users can only read the repository
anon-access = read

# authenticated users can both read and write
auth-access = write

The example settings are, in fact, the default values of the variables, should you forget to define them. If you want to be even more conservative, you can block anonymous access completely:

[general]
password-db = userfile
realm = example realm

# anonymous users aren't allowed
anon-access = none

# authenticated users can both read and write
auth-access = write

The server process not only understands these “blanket” access controls to the repository, but also finer-grained access restrictions placed on specific files and directories within the repository. To make use of this feature, you need to define a file containing more detailed rules, and then set the authz-db variable to point to it:

[general]
password-db = userfile
realm = example realm

# Specific access rules for specific locations
authz-db = authzfile

The syntax of the authzfile file is discussed in detail in the section called “Path-Based Authorization”. Note that the authz-db variable isn't mutually exclusive with the anon-access and auth-access variables; if all the variables are defined at once, then all of the rules must be satisfied before access is allowed.