Very slow svn checkouts unless I use --no-auth-cache

Question

Using an up-to-date Ubuntu precise 64-bit, checking out a large code base

svn co https://....

takes hours. Using cygwin or tortoise it takes 5 minutes. After poking around, I found this post which didn't work, but led me to try;

svn co --no-auth-cache https://....

and the checkout took only the 5 minutes.

So, I have a workaround, but am left wondering if there is something inherently wrong with the Ubuntu installation?

Solution

Through you don't say what was the repositories, of course it could take hours to clone the complete repository (hold your horses before cloning the linux kernel!) so, the time that it takes to clone the repository is perfectly normal and it has other factors like the bandwidth, the load of the SVN server, IPv6, etc. You don't provide more information that could nail the problem.

On the other hand, the --no-auth-cache switch just force your SVN to ask you for credentials in case you are accessing a protected repository. If there is any problem then is with the authentications methods stored in your configurations.

Comments

[CAB]

All other factors remain the same (same repo, same local area network, same laptop, same credentials, same checkout command, svn 1.6). The only difference is Cygwin 5 minutes, and Ubuntu over two hours. The Ubuntu is a cloud server image with minimal additions. From your suggestion the problem is likely in the svn interaction with the auth cache in Ubuntu. What provides the cache that could be missing/broken? Does it rely on Gnome?