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The system that held our main svn repository has passed on. This means I'm going to have to remove the hard drive that contained the repository to another computer.

So, the question is, once the old drive is in a new computer, will we have to re-configure anything in order to access it?

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  • Aside from the fact that this is very marginally related to programming (perhaps by a couple of degrees of separation) I'll suggest you at least provide some more information such as: 1) What is the host OS? 2) Is this disk bootable or does it only contain the repository files 3) What was the original server hardware?
    – Amardeep
    Aug 31, 2011 at 19:59

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To make life simple, I would install on the new server the same version of subversion server that you were using on the old box, even if it is not the latest version, and upgrade later once you have the data in place.

If the repository is the fsfs repository type, then you can just mount the repository and it will work, since fsfs is portable across OS and cpu architectures.

If you were using bdb, then you will need to ensure the target machine has the same OS and architecture, since bdb is not portable across environments. Even if you just us a machine of the same OS/architecture temporarily just to mount the repo so you can do a svnadmin dump to dump the contents of the repo in a text format, whch you can then load on your ultmate target machine without worrying about OS and architecture. (The dump format is portable across OS, architecture and svn version.)

See Strategies for Repository Deployment, which discusses portability of the various subversion repository types (bdb/fsfs).

Once svnserve is up and runing, hosting your repository, existing clients will need to relocate their working copies, using svn switch -relocate <old-url> <new-url>.

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As far as I know, you shouldn't have any issue since the repository will have the same GUID. Just chekout/checkin on the new URL and everything should be fine.

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  • My understanding is that the OP is talking about a repository, rather than a working copy. Clients can move their working copy using relocation. Moving a repo between servers can be straightforward, but not always. My answer outlines the pitfalls.
    – mdma
    Aug 31, 2011 at 20:18
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I have not had an issue with simply redeploying a repository on another server. And, as long as you use the same OS, architecture, and Subversion version, there shouldn't be any issue. In fact, it's probably also true if you do use various operating systems, architectures, etc., but that is not guaranteed by the developers of the Subversion project. They make no promises in compatibility between Subversion versions, operating systems, or hardware architecture.

It's always safest to do an svnadmin dump when moving a repository. Then, doing an svnadmin load on the new system. It's guaranteed to work or double your money back!

In your case, since the old server isn't available, I would mount the repository on a machine that's configured as close as possible to the previous server. Do an svnadmin dump, move that to the new server, then do an svnadmin load.

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