yum install mod_dav_svn
http://geckoblue.livejournal.com/248161.html
Subversion Version Control Bug: attempt to write a readonly database
I found zero help on Google when I was trying to diagnose this bug. I set up a new copy of subversion 1.6.2 and did a dump/merge of a subversion 1.4.6 database into the new system. I made a change to a file and was all set to commit the change, but when I ran a commit I got the following messages:
[error] Could not MERGE resource "/svn/repo/!svn/act/[UUID]" into "/svn/repo/some/path". [409, #0]
[error] An error occurred while committing the transaction. [409, #200031]
[error] attempt to write a readonly database [409, #200031]
[error] attempt to write a readonly database [409, #200031]
After hunting Google to no avail, I decided to examine the permissions on the repository on the subversion server. I found a .db file that did not have group write permissions (because the repository is not owned by apache). After adding group-write permission to the file "/svn/repopath/db/rep-cache.db" , the error went away and normal commit behavior resumed as I originally expected. I will have to blame this on a bug in the svnadmin program which appears to not properly create the permissions on this db file.
I hope this helps the many folks out there that run linux/apache/subversion.