How to setup SVN under Lion correctly?

Question

Using SVN under SnowLeopard (Server) we used the following PLIST:
sh-3.2# whereis svnserve
/usr/bin/svnserve
sh-3.2# svnserve --version
svnserve, version 1.6.16 (r1073529)
   compiled Jun 13 2011, 15:54:33
sh-3.2# cat /Library/LaunchDaemons/svn.plist
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
   <dict>
      <key>Label</key>
      <string>svnserve</string>
      <key>Program</key>
      <string>/usr/bin/svnserve</string>
      <key>ProgramArguments</key>
      <array>
         <string>svnserve</string>
         <string>-d</string>
         <string>-r/Volumes/fsx_hd/svn</string>
      </array>
      <key>ServiceDescription</key>
      <string>SVN Code Version Management</string>
      <key>KeepAlive</key>
      <true/>
   </dict>
</plist>
Under Lion we get 2 running processes:
sh-3.2# ps ax |grep 'svn'
  137   ??  Ss     0:00.00 svnserve -d -r/Volumes/fsx_hd/svn
  188   ??  Ss     0:00.00 svnserve -d -r/Volumes/fsx_hd/svn
  627 s000  R+     0:00.00 grep svn
... and the following error log:
sh-3.2# tail /var/log/system.log
Aug 23 17:51:40 asx com.apple.launchd[1] (svnserve): Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
Aug 23 17:51:50 asx svnserve[630]: svnserve: Can't bind server socket: Address already in use
Aug 23 17:51:50 asx com.apple.launchd[1] (svnserve[630]): Exited with code: 1
Aug 23 17:51:50 asx com.apple.launchd[1] (svnserve): Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
Aug 23 17:52:00 asx svnserve[632]: svnserve: Can't bind server socket: Address already in use
Aug 23 17:52:00 asx com.apple.launchd[1] (svnserve[632]): Exited with code: 1
Aug 23 17:52:00 asx com.apple.launchd[1] (svnserve): Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
Aug 23 17:52:10 asx svnserve[633]: svnserve: Can't bind server socket: Address already in use
Aug 23 17:52:10 asx com.apple.launchd[1] (svnserve[633]): Exited with code: 1
Aug 23 17:52:10 asx com.apple.launchd[1] (svnserve): Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
What is wrong?
Thank you for your help!
Axel Neumann

Answer 1

On careful read of "man launchd.plist" I suspect two errors in your .plist.
1) one should not launch anything which invokes daemon(3) from launchd. Delete your -d option.
2) if Program is specified then that is the executable which is launched. Else the first item in the ProgramArguments array is used. You have double specified "svnserve", suggest deleting the first string in ProgramArguments.