Subversion 1.8.0 client working against a 1.6.11 server

Question

I recently upgraded my subversion client to 1.8.0, even though our company's subversion server is 1.6.11, since everywhere I checked it seemed like they should be compatible.

The basic commands work fine (update, commit, etc). The problem is that when I try to perform some more involved commands like relocates, or I try to generate a release from maven release-plugin. In there cases I get the following error:

[ERROR] svn: E175002: Unable to connect to a repository at URL 'https://mycompaniesserver.com/svn/repo/trunk/project'
[ERROR] svn: E175002: OPTIONS request on '/svn/repo/trunk/project' failed: 503 Service Unavailable

Which my fellow coworkers who use a range of clients from 1.6 to the latest 1.7 don't seem to get.

My guess is that Subversion 1.8 sends some HTTP OPTIONS commands which older versions of the client did not, and the subversion server's firewall o proxy (not subversion per se) is rejecting them.

Is there any way to prevent those newer format messages from being sent, aside from reverting to an older subversion client (since I already converted all my projects to the 1.8 format)? Or is there any clear rule that needs to be added to the subversion server's firewall so the 1.8 clients will work?

Edit: I went back to an 1.7.x client and everthing works fine, but I'd really like to find a way in which I could use the 1.8 client without having te involve the server's sysadmin.

Answer 1

i had the same issue with subversion client 1.8.0 through tortoisesvn 1.8.0 while connecting to a subversion server 1.5.1 over a https-proxy. solved it by using an older subversion client version.

Answer 2

I suppose, you can read chapter "HTTP client support based on neon has been removed" in Subversion 1.8 Release Notes, pay attention to server- and client-side configuration options for Skelta|Bulk mode and test client-server modes from table (discuss it with you Network Administrator) - you may move from bulk to skelta with 1.8

Another version - proxy|firewal in the middle block

Unable to connect to a repository at URL

new changed activity of svn-client

when Kerberos or NTLM authentication is used, ... add a 2 - 4 KB header per HTTP request and response

Answer 3

IIRC this is a bug in 1.8.0. Install one of the later 1.8.x releases.