Migrating VisualSVN Server from one Windows install to another

svn visualsvn-server
Daniel A. White picture Daniel A. White · Oct 22, 2009 · Viewed 22.4k times · Source

I have VisualSVN Server on my Vista laptop. The repository resides on the second hard drive. I am doing a clean install of Windows 7 in the next few days.

How do I configure or install VisualSVN Server again and keep the users, repositories, and settings intact from the previous installation?

Answer

M4N picture M4N · Oct 22, 2009

You can simply copy the folder containing the repositories (e.g. c:\repositories) to the new machine. That folder contains all the users (in the file htpasswd) and the access rights (authz).

Note: this is true if you're using subversion authentication. I'm not sure if it's the same when using windows authentication, but I guess it is, since there's also a file named (authz-windows).

Detailed instructions:

  • on the new server, install VisualSVN server
  • during the installation, you are asked where the repositories should be put (the default is c:\repositories)
  • once the server is installed, go to the old machine and open the VisualSVN Server Manager
  • right-click the VisualSVN Server (local) entry in the console and click Properties
  • it the dialog you can find where the repositories are currently located
  • copy everything contained in that folder to the new server's repository folder (e.g. c:\repositories)
  • maybe you'll have to restart the server, but then everything should be up and running

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