How do I migrate an SVN repository to another SVN repository?

Question

Is there a simple way to copy a directory from one repository into another repository with copying all of the history?

Solution 1

The simplest way is using:

svnadmin dump path/to/repos > repos.out

This will create a portable format for your repository (with history) in the file repos.out. You can then use

svnadmin load path/to/newrepos < repos.out

to load your 'dumped' repository to the new or existing one.

Chapter 5. Repository Maintenance -> Migrating Repository Data Elsewhere has this note about using svnadmin dump as of version 1.7:

The Subversion repository dump format describes versioned repository changes only. It will not carry any information about uncommitted transactions, user locks on filesystem paths, repository or server configuration customizations (including hook scripts), and so on.

Solution 2

As suggested in the Subversion book:

svnadmin dump path/to/repos_src \
    | svndumpfilter include path/inside/svn/to/directory \
    | svnadmin load path/to/repos_dst

With an example:

svnadmin dump /var/lib/svn/old_repo \
    | svndumpfilter include trunk/my_project/common_dir \
    | svnadmin load /var/lib/svn/new_repo

Solution 3

If you don't want history, you can use svn export to get a clean folder without the .svn folders and then svn import into your other repository.

With history, you would need to use the svnadmin dump. You would then use svndumpfilter to filter for only the parts or paths you want to use before using svnadmin load.

Topics to read:

• Migrating Repository Data Elsewhere
• Filtering Repository History

Solution 4

Use the svnsync — Subversion Repository Mirroring command:

svnsync is the Subversion remote repository mirroring tool. Put simply, it allows you to replay the revisions of one repository into another one.

The Subversion documentation for the svnsync command has the following warning (as of version 1.7) implying that once some other SVN commands are used to modify a mirror repository, svnsync should not be used with that particular mirror again:

svnsync is very sensitive to changes made in the mirror repository that weren't made as part of a mirroring operation. To prevent this from happening, it's best if the svnsync process is the only process permitted to modify the mirror repository.

Solution 5

In Subversion version 1.7 there is a new command, svnrdump which can be used to access a remote repository and generate the same dump format output as is generated by the svnadmin dump command. This allows you to use svnrdump with svnadmin load to transfer a Subversion repository.

See svnrdump—Remote Subversion Repository Data Migration which has an explanation of the new command.

In Chapter 5 of the red book, the section Migrating Repository Data Elsewhere has a sub-section Repository data migration using svnrdump that mentions:

The primary difference [between svnrdump and svnadmin dump] is that instead of requiring direct access to the repository, svnrdump operates remotely, using the very same Repository Access (RA) protocols that the Subversion client does. As such, you might need to provide authentication credentials. Also, your remote interations [sic] are subject to any authorization limitations configured on the Subversion server.

I would also assume that the limitations of svnadmin dump concerning server configuration customizations such as hooks may not be transferred would also apply to svnrdump.

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Comments

[delimiter]

Be careful, I just learned the hard way that svnadmin dump DOES NOT include hooks/ or conf/

[Chang Hyun Park]

Just in case anyone makes the mistake I made today, You need to actually be on the svn machine to do this. You can't checkout the repo, and dump from a remote working copy. stackoverflow.com/questions/8866035/… this is a solution for those on a remote location

[Tobias Kremer]

svnrdump dump and svnrdump load would alow you to dump and laod a repository over the network.

[domih]

A somehow safe way to merge is to checkout first via tortoise and add+commit a new folder. Then a svnadmin load --parent-dir newRootFolder < dump.out works for me. See also Combining multiple repositories into one

[Buddybear]

What If I want to copy multiple folders from one repository to another repository?

[Vargas]

You also need to create the destination repository first with svnadmin create path/to/newrepos.

[Jon Weinraub]

I know this is a few years old now, but I am migrating svn from one server to another, and pretty much have 64 repos in /home/repos/svn, so each repo has a conf for access, i would lose authz, passwd, svnserve.conf?

[Sandburg]

What about the svnserve pack option, isn't it newer and better?

[JohannesB]

@delimiter Is there a solution to this problem or is the current solution to manually copy the folders every time we make a dump? Seems like this is something that can be overlooked way to easily...

[bahrep]

This is not the simplest way. The simplest way is to simply copy the repository directory as is or using the svnadmin hotcopy tool.