Setting up SVN post-commits can allow you to automatically update your webroot whenever a change has happened to SVN. It is a script that runs after every commit and is pretty simple to implement:

First make sure your SVN is setup properly by following: Setup Apache with Subversion

After this is done, verify everything is working properly. Note that your entire svn directory should be owned by the user that Apache is running as.

Then create a file /path/to/svn/repos/hooks/post-commit and have it look like:

#!/bin/sh

/path/to/svn/repos/hooks/update

Set it executable:

# chmod +x /path/to/svn/repos/hooks/post-commit

post-commit should be owned by the user apache is running as.

Create the /path/to/svn/repos/hooks/update.c file:

#include <stddef.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
int main(void)
{
  execl("/opt/csw/bin/svn", "svn", "update", "/path/to/web/public/",
        (const char *) NULL);
  return(EXIT_FAILURE);
}

Compile it, set proper permissions:

# cc -o update update.c
# chmod +x update
# chmod u+s update
# chmod g+s update

They should look like:

-rwsr-sr-x   1 bsmith bsmith    7.9K Jan 10 19:06 update*

Make sure your /path/to/web/public is a working copy.

You can verify things are working by running the svn update as your regular user, in this example 'bsmith'.