Using Subversion with DropBox

Question

Is it a bad idea to use DropBox as a backup system for Subversion repositories?

Has anyone tried using Subversion with an an online file sharing utility like DropBox? Wh

Answer 1

See SVN Backups to Dropbox. This generates full or incremental dumps of the SVN repository and uploads the compressed result to Dropbox. The main advantage of this approach is that it does NOT use the Dropbox client software. The Dropbox client software synchronizes between your computer and the cloud, and a corrupted file would be synchronized. You can create a cronjob (or Windows scheduled task) to run this script every day/week/month/etc.

Answer 2

Why to use SVN inside Dropbox? Instead, you can use your own SVN server with Dropbox-like interface: EasySVN from Assembla or IQBox-SVN.

Answer 3

Not the trivial way...

First idea is always "okay, let's keep the repo on Dropbox and it will do the rest". Nope. This combo will always give you locking problems, just as you expected. I tried because I love svn's simplicity but I ended up moving some of my repos to git, just to make the sync flawless.

Now I'm still not a git fan (after a few years of inevitable use because of my clients' version control choices) so here's a few ideas to not do what I did:

What you can do instead

1. RiouxSVN
   There's a very good (and surprisingly, free) svn hosting service: https://riouxsvn.com/ - it's a no-nonsense way to keep your repos somewhere safe, physically detached from your computer, available anywhere as long as you have a connection. So basically, what I guess you wanted to achieve with DropBox.

2. Post-commit
   You can easily create a post-commit batch that copies your local repository to DropBox. Make it a differential mirror, a built-in tool called robocopy can take care of that for you. This way you'll always have a safe instance in the sky.

3. Distract DropBox sync
   This is merely a dirty trick if nothing else seems to work - a pre-commit hook with a big file copy, to cause a noticeable delay for DropBox and prevent simultaneous opening of the same files svn are working on. Not recommended if you have a better option.

Answer 4

Depending on how many files you are syncing it may end up doing a lot of file transferring. (Remember, you only have 200MB on Dropbox without any additional storage bonuses on the free account.) This means all the .svn (or _svn) files will also be synced, in effect doubling the amount of files it needs to keep updated.

If you don't need to move whole directories around in your tree once the initial sync is complete, then transfers should be respectable.

I've tried this myself for some projects and it worked okay, but in the end I think the best way to use Subversion repositories and Dropbox together is to use them for deployment builds. I wouldn't just set Dropbox to sync with my working folder. Use Dropbox to sync up at the end of the day by copying in the working folder to the actual Dropbox folder at scheduled intervals, thereby limiting the amount of constant network traffic the former might incur.

Answer 5

My suggestion is to use dropbox together with an encryption tool such as TrueCrypt. In this way you would have a safe storage on the cloud.

SVN works perfectly in a TrueCrypt disk.

If you need to access the repository at the same time on multiple location I would recommend of using a subversion host provider. DropBox can get confused if two persons are modifying the same file at once.

http://wiki.dropbox.com/TipsAndTricks/IncreasePrivacyAndSafety

http://www.randomwire.com/storing-sensitive-data-in-the-cloud

Answer 6

You can simply exclude the .svn-Folder from Dropbox: (instructions for Mac)

1. You need to see the .svn-Folder, so go into Terminal and execute

   defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES
   killall Finder
   

2. Go to your Folder an Copy the .svn-Folder somewhere else

3. Go to your Dropbox-Preferences > Advanced > Selective Sync and deactivate to .svn-Folder

4. The Folder should now be deleted from your HD and Dropbox, you can check that on the website.

5. Put your copy of the .svn-Folder back into the directory. You should see a little gray sign like (-)

6. Revert step 1 with

   defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles NO
   killall Finder
   

7. That's it!