Move subversion to a new server without access to the old SVN server

Question

I had a network computer that acted as my SVN server. I would then check in and out to that server from my local machine.

That server box has since been removed and is no longer available.

I do still have a copy of the SVN repo folders files that were used.

Now, I would like to install SVN server on my local machine just to get my files up to date and so that I am able to check out and export without the SVN folders, which is not possible without an SVN server to connect to.

Once I have set up SVN server locally, how do I import the old repositories? I have seen ways to do this with a dump in SVN server, but as I indicated, my problem is that there is no server except the new one I am installing locally.

Am I screwed or can this still be done? I really do not want to lose past history.

Thanks

Answer 1

You don't need to install a svn server. If you have a dump file just create a local repository and import it.

svnadmin create your-new-repo svnadmin load your-new-repo < /path/to/your/dumpfile 

If you don't have a dumpfile, only the plain svn directory of your svn repository, just use this a your new repository path. Try if you can checkout from it.

svn co file:///path/to/your/svn/directory 

If this work, you can use svn switch to point your old checked out code to your new repository path.

If you only have a checked out copy of your svn repository you've lost your complete history. Because svn doesn't store the history of your changes localy.

HTH

Jan