RE: Maintaining a SVN 1.7 mirror without network access

[Colcord, Scott via users]

Thanks to all for their insights.

On Saturday, June 3, 2023 2:41 PM, Andreas Stieger wrote:
> No you cannot do it in the way you described, and your approach is incorrect. 
> Not for svn, but IT.

Just to be clear, the status quo was not my idea; I'm just trying to work with 
it.

> For subversion: If you alter the history of the repository in any way, all 
> working copies
> will be invalidated. So even if you repeat the steps described, you will need 
> to get new 
> working copies.

Right; the need to re-fetch working copies after an update is understood. It's 
been annoying but manageable because the mirror is read-only other than the 
single adjustment commit - I don't need to worry about anyone having pending 
changes in their working copy on that network.

> Please separate immutable history from the location-specific configuration.

I would love to, but...see below.

On Sunday, June 4, 2023 4:06 AM, Nico Kadel-Garcia wrote:
> Do you gain anything from running these distinct repos, instead of a 
> primary repo, a backup mirror, and a DNS or proxy managed name 
> for the URL or hostname mentioned in the svn:externals? Rather than 
> pointing so directly to one or the other repo?

Everything is on a single server with the same name on each network, so I can 
just use externals paths with no server name needed.  However some of the 
externals required by my project are located at different paths on the mirror's 
network. For example, /foo/tags/public_10 versus /foo/tags/private_10, or 
/components/foo vs. /private/components/FOO. These inconsistencies are 
unfortunately locked in; I do not have the ability to relocate these projects 
on either network, and I'm not aware of any way to embed more complex logic in 
the externals checkout process.

My current process for mirror updates involves reloading the repository, 
running a script that commits the adjustment to svn:externals, and then having 
everyone re-fetch their working copies. If anyone has any suggestions for how 
to better manage this situation within the limits I have to live within, I 
would be happy to hear it.

  Thanks,

Scott

Maintaining a SVN 1.7 mirror without network access

[Colcord, Scott via users]

I have a Subversion 1.7 repo.  I need to periodically mirror it to a location 
that does not have direct net access (I can transfer a .dump file to it).

One catch is that the mirror needs to be able to receive one divergent commit 
after the load (this commit alters svn:externals locations to be appropriate 
for the mirror's network).  I'm fine with manually reapplying this commit after 
each load.

Currently, when I want to refresh the mirror, I have a sysadmin log in to the 
mirror SVN server, delete and recreate the repo from scratch, and then load the 
dump into it and apply the single manual commit.  This works, but is pretty 
cumbersome, and requires an admin.

Is there a way to replace the mirror repo with the contents of the dump, 
without needing to manually delete it first - and ideally without needing local 
rights (perhaps using svnrdump)?  Essentially, I want the revisions from the 
dump file to replace the same-number revisions in the repo, rather than 
appending.

Is this possible?

   Thanks!


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