Backup of SVN repository, located on Linux server, to Windows Client

Question

I try to create a backup of my SVN repository, located on Linux server, from Windows command-line Subversion Client:

C:\\project>svnadmin hotcopy svn://"URL_of_my_SVN_repository"/ C:/BACKUP

and receive following error: svnadmin: E205000: 'svn://"URL_of_my_SVN_repository"/' is a URL when it should be a local path

How I can solve it? I need to initiate a backup my SVN repository from Windows PC (due to our network policy I have access to the Linux server port 3690 (SVN) only).

Answer 1

According to the documentation , you can't run svnadmin from a remote machine:

Since svnadmin works via direct repository access (and thus can only be used on the machine that holds the repository), it refers to the repository with a path, not a URL.

Answer 2

The standard approach to backing up to a remote location is to combine multiple tools:

1. Run svnadmin on the machine which serves svn.
2. Use a tool like rsync to copy that repo dump from the svn server to the machine which will be backed up.

If your network policy allows you to run an svn server on a machine, but not to schedule svnadmin backup jobs on that machine, then I think you need to re-consider your network policy.