Filtering out SVN's (mod_dav_svn) low-level logs in Apache's standard access_log

2011, April 28 - 17:07 — müzso

I've experienced the same weird behavior regarding the SVN-ACTION environment variable as Max Cantor in his post to the users@httpd mailing list. However a fairly obvious workaround can be set up with a few additional lines in the config.

Max complained about the following env filter not to be effective:

CustomLog /var/log/apache2/access.log combined env=!SVN-ACTION

I've tried the same with similiar results, ie. the SVN traffic still got logged in access.log.

I don't know the answer to the "why", but an obvious workaround is to use another environment variable.

Put a new environment variable inside the Location directive of your SVN config.
Eg.

<Location "/svn">
  <IfModule mod_env.c>
    SetEnv is_svn yes
  </IfModule>
  DAV svn
  SVNParentPath /var/lib/svn
  SVNListParentPath on
  
  AuthType Basic
  (...)
  Require valid-user
</Location>

And now filter your access_log based on the non-existance of this variable:

CustomLog /var/log/apache2/access.log combined env=!is_svn

However I still wonder why the does the env=!SVN-ACTION approach not work?