==== What Is It? ==== svnsync is a tool for creating and maintaining read-only mirrors of subversion repositories. It works by replaying commits that occurred in one repository and committing it into another. ==== Basic Setup ==== First, you need to create your destination repository: $ svnadmin create dest Because svnsync uses revprops to keep track of bookkeeping information (and because it copies revprops from the source to the destination) it needs to be able to change revprops on your destination repository. To do this you'll need to set up a pre-revprop-change hook script that lets the user you'll run svnsync as make arbitrary propchanges. $ cat <<'EOF' > dest/hooks/pre-revprop-change #!/bin/sh USER="$3" if [ "$USER" = "svnsync" ]; then exit 0; fi echo "Only the svnsync user can change revprops" >&2 exit 1 EOF $ chmod +x dest/hooks/pre-revprop-change $ svnsync init --username svnsync file://`pwd`/dest \ http://svn.example.org/source/repos Copied properties for revision 0 $ Note that the arguments to 'svnsync init' are two arbitrary repository URLs. The first is the destination, which must be empty, and the second is the source. Now you can just run the 'svnsync sync' command to synchronize pending revisions. This will copy any revisions that exist in the source repos but don't exist in the destination repos. $ svnsync sync file://`pwd`/dest Committed revision 1. Copied properties for revision 1. Committed revision 2. Copied properties for revision 2. Committed revision 3. Copied properties for revision 3. ... ==== Locks ==== If you kill a sync while it's occurring there's a chance that it might leave the repository "locked". svnsync ensures that only one svnsync process is copying data into a given destination repository at a time by creating a svn:sync-lock revprop on revision zero of the destination repository. If that property is there, but you're sure no svnsync is actually running, you can unlock the repository by deleting that revprop. $ svn pdel --revprop -r 0 svn:sync-lock file://`pwd`/dest ==== FAQ ==== Q: So what can I do with this thing anyway? A: Well, anything that's read-only. As long as you don't commit changes to the destination repository you're all set. This means destination repositories are good for providing offsite mirrors, read-only mirrors, etc. Q: What if I want to check out from a mirror, but commit to the master? A: That's possible, but requires some gymnastics. You see, each repository has its own UUID, which is stored in the working copy, so if you check out from the mirror, and then do a 'svn switch --relocate' to point to the master it'll error out. To make this work you need to make sure that the mirrors have the same UUID as the master. You can set a repository UUID via the following technique: $ cat - <<EOF | svnadmin load --force-uuid dest SVN-fs-dump-format-version: 2 UUID: d48dd586-eb1d-0410-b581-e6e13afcedeb EOF Once both the mirror and master repositories have the same UUID you can safely check out from the mirror and commit to the master, all you have to do is do a 'svn switch --relocate' to point your working copy to the master before a commit. Note that you should NEVER commit changes to a mirror other than via svnsync, so to avoid accidentally doing so you may want to add a pre-commit hook script that disallows commits from users other than the one you run svnsync as. Q: What version of Subversion is required to use svnsync? A: The source repository must be running Subversion 1.4 or newer, since svnsync uses a new RA layer command that was added in 1.4. On the other hand, the destination repository can be any version of Subversion, since all svnsync is doing is committing changes using the regular RA APIs. Q: Do I need to run svnsync on the same machine as one of the repositories? A: While you do need direct access to the destination repository to set up a pre-revprop-change hook script, after that point svnsync communicates with both repositories through the same "repository access" layer that svn uses to connect to remote repositories. So svnsync does not have to be run on the same machine as either repository; it can communicate with both repositories over any of Subversion's RA protocols (svn://, svn+ssh://, http://, https://, or file:///). In fact, you don't need any special permissions on the source repository at all. Q: How does svnsync deal with parts of the master repository that I'm not authorized to read? A: svnsync will simply not copy parts of the repository that you cannot read; files copied from "private" parts of the repository into "public" parts will look as if they have been added from scratch. If a revision only modifies files that you cannot read, it will appear to be empty. (Just like with "svn log", log messages from revisions you cannot read part of will be empty.) Q: Can I mirror a subdirectory of a master repository? A: While the underlying RA layer command that svnsync relies on does support that, svnsync itself does not currently. (Patches welcome!) If you need this ability right now, you may want to look into SVK (http://svk.bestpractical.com/). Q: What happens when I change a revprop on the master server? A: That depends, did you change it on a revision that had already been mirrored or one that's still waiting to be mirrored. If the revision hasn't been mirrored yet, the new revprop will just get copied across normally when the next sync happens. If not, then you've got a small problem. You see, since revprops aren't versioned, there's no way to detect (via the Subversion RA APIs anyway) that it's been changed, so the next time you run a sync svnsync has no way to tell that it has changed. There is a way for you to build your own solution though, just use the 'svnsync copy-revprops' command. The usual technique is either to put an explicit call to it in your master repository's post-revprop-change script, or to have the post-revprop-change script record the fact that a change occurred, and then later on have some job look through the list of changes and copy them over for you.