diff --git a/conf/example.gitolite.rc b/conf/example.gitolite.rc
index b1a921f..91c776b 100644
--- a/conf/example.gitolite.rc
+++ b/conf/example.gitolite.rc
@@ -143,6 +143,20 @@ $RSYNC_BASE = "";
 # $RSYNC_BASE = "/home/git/up-down";
 # $RSYNC_BASE = "/tmp/up-down";
 
+# --------------------------------------
+# EXTERNAL COMMAND HELPER -- SVNSERVE
+
+# security note: runs an external command (svnserve) with specific arguments,
+# as specified below. %u is substituted with the username.
+
+# This setting allows launching svnserve when requested by the ssh client.
+# This allows using the same SSH setup (hostname/username/public key) for both
+# SVN and git access. Leave it undefined or set to the empty string to disable
+# svnserve access.
+
+$SVNSERVE = "";
+# $SVNSERVE = "/usr/bin/svnserve -r /var/svn/ -t --tunnel-user=%u";
+
 # --------------------------------------
 # ALLOW REPO CONFIG TO USE WILDCARDS
 
diff --git a/doc/3-faq-tips-etc.mkd b/doc/3-faq-tips-etc.mkd
index ff8dc09..cd8336d 100644
--- a/doc/3-faq-tips-etc.mkd
+++ b/doc/3-faq-tips-etc.mkd
@@ -503,6 +503,18 @@ You can specify hooks that you want to propagate to all repos, as well as
 per-repo "gitconfig" settings.  Please see `doc/2-admin.mkd` and
 `conf/example.conf` for details.
 
+<a name="svnserve"></a>
+
+#### svnserve ####
+
+If you are transitioning from SVN to gitolite, and have a lot of users using
+public-key authentication with SVN, this feature may be useful to you. Once
+you migrate all users' public keys into gitolite, you can set the `$SVNSERVE`
+variable in `~/.gitolite.rc` to tie `svnserve` with gitolite's authentication
+system. Assuming you installed gitolite to the same user as the one you used
+for SVN, SVN connectivity will be retained, and users will be able to use
+both SVN and git using the same SSH configuration.
+
 <a name="gitweb"></a>
 
 ### helping with gitweb
diff --git a/src/gitolite.pm b/src/gitolite.pm
index b3efd0c..e7239d3 100644
--- a/src/gitolite.pm
+++ b/src/gitolite.pm
@@ -35,7 +35,6 @@ our $REPOPATT_PATT=qr(^\@?[0-9a-zA-Z][\\^.$|()[\]*+?{}0-9a-zA-Z._\@/-]*$);
 
 # these come from the RC file
 our ($REPO_UMASK, $GL_WILDREPOS, $GL_PACKAGE_CONF, $GL_PACKAGE_HOOKS);
-our ($SVNSERVE);
 our %repos;
 
 # ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
@@ -365,7 +364,7 @@ sub expand_wild
 
 sub special_cmd
 {
-    my ($GL_ADMINDIR, $GL_CONF_COMPILED, $shell_allowed, $RSYNC_BASE, $HTPASSWD_FILE) = @_;
+    my ($GL_ADMINDIR, $GL_CONF_COMPILED, $shell_allowed, $RSYNC_BASE, $HTPASSWD_FILE, $SVNSERVE) = @_;
 
     my $cmd = $ENV{SSH_ORIGINAL_COMMAND};
     my $user = $ENV{GL_USER};
diff --git a/src/gl-auth-command b/src/gl-auth-command
index 24fc5b9..2cb4371 100755
--- a/src/gl-auth-command
+++ b/src/gl-auth-command
@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ use warnings;
 # ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
 # these are set by the "rc" file
-our ($GL_LOGT, $GL_CONF_COMPILED, $REPO_BASE, $GIT_PATH, $REPO_UMASK, $GL_ADMINDIR, $RSYNC_BASE, $HTPASSWD_FILE, $GL_WILDREPOS);
+our ($GL_LOGT, $GL_CONF_COMPILED, $REPO_BASE, $GIT_PATH, $REPO_UMASK, $GL_ADMINDIR, $RSYNC_BASE, $HTPASSWD_FILE, $SVNSERVE, $GL_WILDREPOS);
 # and these are set by gitolite.pm
 our ($R_COMMANDS, $W_COMMANDS, $REPONAME_PATT, $REPOPATT_PATT);
 our %repos;
@@ -151,7 +151,7 @@ if ($ENV{SSH_ORIGINAL_COMMAND} =~ $CUSTOM_COMMANDS) {
 my ($verb, $repo) = ($ENV{SSH_ORIGINAL_COMMAND} =~ /^\s*(git\s+\S+|\S+)\s+'\/?(.*?)(?:\.git)?'/);
 unless ( $verb and ( $verb =~ $R_COMMANDS or $verb =~ $W_COMMANDS ) and $repo and $repo =~ $REPONAME_PATT ) {
     # ok, it's not a normal git command; call the special command helper
-    &special_cmd ($GL_ADMINDIR, $GL_CONF_COMPILED, $shell_allowed, $RSYNC_BASE, $HTPASSWD_FILE);
+    &special_cmd ($GL_ADMINDIR, $GL_CONF_COMPILED, $shell_allowed, $RSYNC_BASE, $HTPASSWD_FILE, $SVNSERVE);
     exit;
 }
 die "$repo ends with a slash; I don't like that\n" if $repo =~ /\/$/;