SVN – Is svnadmin Dump Necessary for Subversion Backup

backupsvn

We have subversion repositories that are accessed via svn+ssh and apache's svn module. Is there any problem with just backing up the repository directories directly, or will I get something out of doing an svnadmin dump on them?

I'm currently of the opinion that a backup copy of the directories is fine.

Best Answer

See here: Best way to do Subversion backups? as it will answer your question overall I believe.

NOTE: the below is based on my own sysadmin experience. I'm not a Subversion expert, and you might get more informed answers over on StackOverflow.

Personally, I had to backup an SVN server in the past and I used svnadmin dump even though the Engineering dept. head there swore that his nightly rsync was just as valid. There is a risk with rsync if the repos are in use though that the rsync won't catch everything.

For me I ended up leaving his rsync cron job in place to keep him happy and doing the svnadmin dump to a tar file offsite.

As far as benefits of svnadmin dump or hotcopy, I can't really think of any to be honest, at least in a DR scenario, other than that they can make sure they get online repos in use.

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