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Importing svn repositories from Origo

Origo is shutting down their SVN hosting, so I am once again forced to move to another SVN hosting service. The thing is, they did provide us with an URL to a "nightly dump" of the repository.

But in fact, this is NOT a Subversion portable dump file. What I got is a 280Mb "tar.gz" backup of the whole filesystem repository.

Thus, when trying to "import" or manage that backup I am faced with a few issues.

  1. It was created with any version of svnadmin that I don't know about
  2. It was created on linux (it seems), and I am working on Windows

Since I am planning to go back to Assembla for SVN hosting, I need a valid portable dump file for import. Here is where I am stuck:

  • I cannot do a svnadmin load because I did not get a valid dump file in the first place.
  • I tried to untar/unzip the backup file to a folder, then create myself a dump using svnadmin dump. But then I get a dreaded message: 'vnadmin: E160033: Unknown FS type 'fsfs
    • Note the weird message: s has been replaced by '
    • If you look closely you will find that this is the result of printing Unknown FS type '%s' with %s=fsfs\cr...
    • So, I do have a CR+LF issue with that backup. Which I confirmed by comparing a fresh svnadmin create testrepo against my Origo repository.

I am posting a question here hoping that I can find a way to kinda handle this conversion from a linux svn repository to a windows svn repository.

I already see two options out of this mess, both of which I would rather try to avoid:

OPTION 1: Use a linux PC. That means:

  1. Find a linux PC
  2. untar/unzip there
  3. install svn.
  4. use svnadmin to create a portable dump (in the hopes that whatever svnadmin I end-up using is still compatible with the repo I got in the first place).

OPTION 2: Use svnsync

  1. Install svn, including svnsync
  2. Use it on the original repository to sync and create a mirrored repository
  3. Use svndump on that mirrored repository to create a portable dump
  4. Well, that works until the original repo is still up and running.

SIDE NOTE: I have been saving that daily backup file for years, but only now am I trying now to make any use of it and I have this problem. Which makes me think back about making restores instead of backups

Solution

  • If it really backup of FS-tree of repo, you can only

    • Install local SVN
    • Restore files (directories?) from archive over empty repository location
    • If all OK (repositories are reacheable and reabable) - create dump, which Assembla-interface can accept