Converting Linux SVN Repos to Windows SVN Repos

Question

I have been tasked with finding out if our current Linux SVN Server can be migrated to MS Windows.

I have located and trialed a program called VisualSVN Server and it seems to do everything that we need, but I am clueless as to if it is possible to convert the current Linux repos to run on a Windows Server box.

I am new to the whole SVN application so please treat me gently with your answers :)

Thanks,

C.

Answer 1

I have personnally successfully used repositories created in Linux on the Windows platform and vice-versa.

There are no incompatibilities from a platform point of view.

You still should be careful about the Subversion software version used on each platform, since the Subversion repository format has evolved over time.

The best course of action to avoid any pitfall is to do a complete dump of your repository:

$ svnadmin dump /var/svn/repos > full.dump

and load it on the target server:

C:\svn> svnadmin load newrepos < full.dump

See http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.5/svn.reposadmin.maint.html#svn.reposadmin.maint.migrate for more details.

Answer 2

You can migrate FSFS repos without doing anything (even BDB just needs a small tweak as long as CPU arch didn't change), but as mentioned, the "safe way" is to dump and load.

I've done linux->windows migration before and you should be well aware that your performance will suffer badly if using (the default) FSFS. NTFS is just a horrible file system when it comes to many files / small files. I have observed things like 'svn ls' to see an order of magnitude drop in performance. Better test first to see if you're still happy.