You need to set this up on the server which hosts the SVN repository. Enter the repository and you should see a folder labelled hooks, create a new file labelled pre-commit without any extension and paste the following code inside
#!/bin/sh REPOS="$1" TXN="$2" SVNLOOK=/usr/bin/svnlook $SVNLOOK log -t "$TXN" "$REPOS" | \ grep "[a-zA-Z0-9]" > /dev/null GREP_STATUS=$? if [ $GREP_STATUS -ne 0 ] then echo "Your commit has been blocked because you didn't give any log message" 1>&2 echo "Please write a log message describing the purpose of your changes and" 1>&2 echo "then try committing again. -- Thank you" 1>&2 exit 1 fi exit 0
Note: I did not come up with this solution, I will update the source as soon as I can find it again.