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Subversion (SVN)
Port 3690 is primarily used by the Subversion (SVN) version control system for its custom protocol communication between Subversion clients and servers. SVN enables collaborative management of source code and documents, allowing multiple users to track changes, revert to previous states, and manage project versioning efficiently over a network connection..
Subversion is an open-source centralized version control system designed to track files and directories, as well as their changes over time. Operating over port 3690, it uses a custom protocol (svnserve) optimized for efficient server-client communication outside of HTTP. The protocol supports repository browsing, commit, update, checkout, and branch management operations.
SVN can also be accessed via other protocols such as HTTP/HTTPS (using WebDAV with Apache), or via SSH for encrypted transport, but direct svnserve usually communicates plaintext over port 3690 unless tunneled. This direct method is generally faster due to reduced overhead but lacks built-in encryption.
SVN's architecture revolves around a central repository stored on the server, with clients synchronizing local working copies. The simplicity of the network protocol via port 3690 is part of SVN’s lightweight design, facilitating version control even on limited or legacy networks, making it popular for both small teams and large enterprises before distributed systems like Git gained momentum.