How do I migrate an SVN repository with history to a new Git repository?

Question

I read the Git manual, FAQ, Git - SVN crash course, etc. and they all explain this and that, but nowhere can you find a simple instruction like:

SVN repository in: <

Answer 1

I suggest getting comfortable with Git before trying to use git-svn constantly, i.e. keeping SVN as the centralized repo and using Git locally.

However, for a simple migration with all the history, here are the few simple steps:

Initialize the local repo:

mkdir project
cd project
git svn init http://svn.url

Mark how far back you want to start importing revisions:

git svn fetch -r42

(or just "git svn fetch" for all revs)

Actually fetch everything since then:

git svn rebase

You can check the result of the import with Gitk. I'm not sure if this works on Windows, it works on OSX and Linux:

gitk

When you've got your SVN repo cloned locally, you may want to push it to a centralized Git repo for easier collaboration.

First create your empty remote repo (maybe on GitHub?):

git remote add origin git@github.com:user/project-name.git

Then, optionally sync your main branch so the pull operation will automatically merge the remote master with your local master, when both contain new stuff:

git config branch.master.remote origin
git config branch.master.merge refs/heads/master

After that, you may be interested in trying out my very own git_remote_branch tool, which helps dealing with remote branches:

First explanatory post: "Git remote branches"

Follow-up for the most recent version: "Time to git collaborating with git_remote_branch"