nginx SSL termination for apache2.2 svn server results in endless redirects

Question

I'm trying to set up a SVN repository on our new company server. We are using nginx for SSL termination and apache as SVN backend.

I don't know whats wrong with my configuration, but if I call svn info https://svn.example.com/repo I'm getting:

Redirecting to URL 'https://svn.example.com/repo':
Redirecting to URL 'https://svn.example.com/repo':
svn: E195019: Redirect cycle detected for URL 'https://svn.example.com/repo'

If I use wireshark to sniff the unencrypted traffic from nginx frontend to our apache backend I can see an "Options" request for "/repo" followed by a 301 Moved Permanently redirect to http://svn.example.com/repo/. But the svn client apparently only sees a redirect to https://svn.example.com/repo (trailing slash stripped off by nginx) which it follows only to get this redirect again

I think my error is some simple configuration directive I forgot to set or something similar, but after googling for more than 3 hours without finding anything that helps, I'm feeling al little helpless.

My nginx cofiguration:

server {
        ssl                     on;
        ssl_certificate         ssl/svn.example.com.crt;
        ssl_certificate_key     ssl/svn.example.com.key;
        listen                  1.2.3.4:443 ssl spdy;
        allow                   all;
        server_name             svn.example.com;
        location / {
                set $fixed_destination $http_destination;
                if ( $http_destination ~* ^https(.*)$ ) {
                        set $fixed_destination http$1;
                }
                proxy_set_header Destination $fixed_destination;
                proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
                proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
                proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
                proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-By $server_addr:$server_port;
                proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
                proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8080;
                proxy_redirect http:// https://;
        }
}

And this is the apache virtual host config:

<VirtualHost *:8080>
        ServerName svn.example.com
        ServerAdmin spam@example.com

        DocumentRoot /srv/svn
        <Directory /srv/svn>
                Options none
                AllowOverride None
                Order deny,allow
                Deny from all
        </Directory>

        <Location />
                Order deny,allow
                Allow from all

                DAV svn
                SVNParentPath /srv/svn
                SVNReposName "Subversion Repository"

                #our access control policy
                AuthzSVNAccessFile /srv/svn/access

                #only authenticated users may access the repository
                Require valid-user

                #how to authenticate a user
                AuthType Basic
                AuthName "Subversion Repository"
                AuthUserFile /srv/svn/users

                Satisfy All
        </Location>

        ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/svn_error.log

        # Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
        # alert, emerg.
        LogLevel warn

        CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/svn_access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

My software versions:

# apache2ctl -v
Server version: Apache/2.2.22 (Debian)
Server built:   Feb  1 2014 21:26:04

# nginx -v
nginx version: nginx/1.6.0

#svn --version
svn, version 1.8.9 (r1591380)
   compiled May 21 2014, 03:09:46 on x86_64-pc-linux-gnu

Copyright (C) 2014 The Apache Software Foundation.
This software consists of contributions made by many people;
see the NOTICE file for more information.
Subversion is open source software, see http://subversion.apache.org/

The following repository access (RA) modules are available:

* ra_svn : Module for accessing a repository using the svn network protocol.
  - with Cyrus SASL authentication
  - handles 'svn' scheme
* ra_local : Module for accessing a repository on local disk.
  - handles 'file' scheme
* ra_serf : Module for accessing a repository via WebDAV protocol using serf.
  - using serf 1.3.6
  - handles 'http' scheme
  - handles 'https' scheme

Same svn version on the client.

@melsayed Because the apache server redirects to http:// (I corrected that typo in my question) — Thilo, Jul 06 '14 at 02:51

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 06 '14 at 17:23

Well, after googling some more I finally found the solution: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18474825/what-is-the-cause-of-svn-e195019-redirect-cycle-detected-for-url/18474826#18474826

After moving the DocumentRoot to another location than the "svn root" all things works as expected.

I hope this helps someone having the same problem.

nginx SSL termination for apache2.2 svn server results in endless redirects

1 Answers1