How to enable mod_dav_svn in the root directory of a named virtual host?

The problem is that you are using the document root also as the repository root (I'm not blaming you, this should just work, but it doesn't).

Try pointing the DocumentRoot and SVNParentPath directives to different physical locations, so the resulting config file should look like this (abbreviated):

<VirtualHost *:80>    DocumentRoot /home/svn.example.com/docroot    <Location />        SVNParentPath /home/svn.example.com/svnroot        SVNListParentPath on    </Location></VirtualHost>

Also, as @Nigel Jewell says, remove that Rewrite block, for sanity.

Continuing from comments to my previous answer, I've tried also with a VirtualHost:

<VirtualHost 127.0.0.1:80><Location />    DAV svn    SVNPath /repository    AuthType Basic    AuthName "Repository authentication"    AuthUserFile /repository/.svn-auth    AuthzSVNAccessFile /repository/.svn-access    Satisfy All    Require valid-user</Location></VirtualHost>

and it's working, I can browse the repository with firefox and can access it with the svn command line client.

Found this in /etc/apache2/conf.d/subversion.conf (need to map error documents to defaults):

<VirtualHost *>    ServerName svn.example.com    ErrorLog    /var/log/apache2/svn.example.com-error_log    TransferLog /var/log/apache2/svn.example.com-access_log    #    # Do not set DocumentRoot. It is not needed here and just causes trouble.    #    # Map the error documents back to their defaults.    # Otherwise mod_dav_svn tries to find a "error" repository.    #    ErrorDocument 400 default    ErrorDocument 401 default    ErrorDocument 403 default    ErrorDocument 404 default    ErrorDocument 405 default    ErrorDocument 408 default    ErrorDocument 410 default    ErrorDocument 411 default    ErrorDocument 412 default    ErrorDocument 413 default    ErrorDocument 414 default    ErrorDocument 415 default    ErrorDocument 500 default    ErrorDocument 501 default    ErrorDocument 502 default    ErrorDocument 503 default    #    <Location />...    </Location>

After I've done this everything started working as expected.