Migrating from VisualSVN on windows to linux based svn

Question

I'd like to migrate my svn repository from my local computer running windows and VisualSVN 2.1.2 to an svn app on webfaction (my Linux hosting solution).

Initially I tried dumping the svn:

svnadmin dump path_to_repository > dumpfile_name

and loading it on the Linux machine

svnadmin load dumpfile_name

I received the following error:

svnadmin: Can't open file 'dumpfile_path_and_name/format': Not a directory

I found that on my Windows machine I do have a format folder under the repository. So I copied the entire repository to the Linux machine and tried:

svnadmin load path_to_repository_copy

I received the following error:

svnadmin: Expected FS format between '1' and '3'; found format '4'

what should I do?

Answer 1

The syntax for svnadmin load should be

svnadmin load /path/to/repository < dumpfile

See here

Answer 2

svnadmin dump path_to_repository > dumpfile_name

This is correct.

svnadmin load dumpfile_name

svnadmin: Can't open file 'dumpfile_path_and_name/format': Not a directory

You must first

svnadmin create path_to_repository

Then you can

svnadmin load path_to_repository < dumpfile_name

I found that on my Windows machine I do have a format folder under the repository. So I copied the entire repository to the Linux machine and tried:

svnadmin load path_to_repository_copy

svnadmin: Expected FS format between '1' and '3'; found format '4'

The whole point of the dump/load cycle rather than copying files straight is to work around database version differences. In this case you have a newer svn on Windows than on your Linux box, so the Linux box complains it doesn't know about the new format (4). (Your load syntax is also wrong, see 'svnadmin load --help', but it hits this error first.)