> PROPFIND request failed on '/svn/Superscout'
> PROPFIND of '/svn/Superscout': Server certificate verification
> failed: certificate issued for a different hostname, issuer is not
> trusted ()
You're accessing Subversion through the HTTP protocol, the same one
used by web browsers. This is probably the most common way to use SVN.
HTTP servers can, and often do, use an encrypted connection, called
"https". Subversion can do that, too, and that's what's going on here.
The encryption includes a "server certificate," a digital signature
that proves that the server you're talking to really is the one you
think it is. This is included because it is possible to arrange so
that connections you think are going to one computer actually go to
another. There's an attack called the "man in the middle," where some
bad person sets things up this way, then forwards messages back and
forth between you and the true server. Your web browser (or
Subversion) sends and receives exactly the packets it expects to, but
the "man in the middle" is reading everything. Unfortunately, there is
no way to detect or prevent this from the stream of messages alone.
The server certificate protects you against this, because the server
certificates are digitally signed by someone else. The idea is that
there should be a few signatories that you trust to do this, and you
can confirm that one of these signed a given server's certificate, and
hence you trust that it's the one you want. This is the same as
checking a person's driver's license: you trust the state to attest
who the person is; you've seen driver's licenses before and can spot a
phony (at least, if it's not too good a phony), and so having seen the
license, you can trust that the person is who they claim to be.
This process isn't working for you. The messages actually say there
are two problems:
- certificate issued for a different hostname
- issuer is not trusted