Create SVN repository from svnadmin hotcopy

Question

I have a backup of all my svn repository folders and sadly I didn´t know anything of the svn dump format. The backups are created with "hotcopy"

Now my server is broken and I had to reinstall everything from scratch and I want to reimport the svn repositories.

Copying them into the folder didn´t work and

svnadmin create /my/existing/repository

didn´t work too.

Is there any possibility to restore my repositories in an "easy" way?

Answer 1

Just transfer the hotcopy to the new server and point the svn server at it.

The only thing to watch out for is a large difference between the versions of the svn server. If the new server isn't compatible with the format used on the old server it might not work.

Here's what I have done as an experiment to illustrate. I have a repository on my laptop ~/svnServe/importantApp

Start up the svn server against the original repo

svnserve --listen-host 127.0.0.1 -d -r ~/svnServe/importantApp/

Run a list command from the svn client

svn list svn://127.0.0.1/
branches/
tags/
trunk/

Make a hot copy of the server

svnadmin hotcopy ~/svnServe/importantApp ~/svnServe/importantAppHotcopy

Start the server against the hotcopy

sudo svnserve --listen-host 127.0.0.1 -d -r ~/svnServe/importantAppHotcopy/

Run a list command from the svn client

svn list svn://127.0.0.1/
branches/
tags/
trunk/