Svnsync automatisation via Windows Scheduler

Recently I've been setting up for a project, as you might have noticed, and one of the problems we ran into was the fact that we have a centralized subversion repository. We don't have access to control or install anything on the actual server unfortunately, so hence we can't install trac on that system, as previously explained. The solution is to sync the main subversion databases to the trac server as previously explained.

A secondary problem arising from this, is that we can't actually change the hook files of the master repository. The solution to this, is to add a synchronizing scheduler. As I was stressed, and had no time to deal with this properly, I had to run with the Windows Scheduler of all horrible solutions. The following explains how to set it up.

Windows Scheduled synchronize Task

Warning! The windows scheduler does not start automatically when you reboot etc. If you do this, the task restarts at it's start time, so if it's set to run at 00.00 every day, and then every 5 minutes, it will restart and start running at 00.00, not as soon as the machine is started up again. This is pure evil.

A scheduled task is set up as follows, create a bat file (ie, c:\projects\svn\project\svnsync-project.bat):

svnsync synchronize http://localhost/svn/project --sync-username slaveuser --sync-password tjohej --source-password password
c:\Python25\Scripts\trac-admin.exe c:\projects\trac\project\ resync

The Second line unfortunately has to be done to resync the new changes with the trac database. After this, create a scheduled task in windows as follows:

1. Go to start -> control panel -> scheduled tasks
2. Click Add scheduled task
3. Click Next
4. Click Browse...
5. Browse to your svnsync-project.bat file, as described above. Double click it.
6. Set name (default is ok). Perform this task: Daily
7. Click Next
8. Start time: 00:00, Every day, Start date: today
9. Fill in username/password to run it as.
   
10. Select open advanced properties for this task. Click Finish.
11. Go to tab Schedule. Choose Advanced.
12. Click Repeat task, fill in Every 10 minutes, and click Time and fill in 23:59
13. Click OK.
14. Click OK
15. Done.
    

This could most likely be done from cruisecontrol, but as stated, i'm stressed. I hate windows by now (at/cron is just sooo much nicer to handle).

Trac on separate server from subversion

It is possible to have Trac on a different server than the subversion server, albeit a bit convoluted. This is slightly stolen note from http://blogs.open.collab.net/svn/2007/08/mirroring-repos.html

Set up the master subversion server as you would normally. We will get back to this one.

On the trac server, install subversion etc as well. This server will rely on svnsync to become a secondary/mirror subversion server. It must not be used for checking in or working against, it is purely a repository for reading.

Set up trac and all other tools required on the mirror server.

Now, you need to set up user accounts on the mirror server. To start with, create the mirror subversion repository, it will be empty to begin with:

svnadmin create MIRROR_REPOS_PATH

After that, create authz authentication files for the repositories to stop anyone from writing/working against the mirror repository, such as the following:

[/]

* = r

svnsync = rw

You could extend this by writing hook scripts blocking anything but the svnsync user.

If the master subversion repository is live while adding the trac database, all of the following must be done during server maintenance window (ie, close it down from any kind of access, except the mirror machine).

Once all that is done, its time to initialize the the mirror server with the master subversion repository (ie, move over the data).

svnsync initialize URL_TO_MIRROR_REPO URL_TO_MASTER_REPO --username=svnsync --password=svnsyncpassword

And once that has successfully been done, do as follows:

svnsync synchronize URL_TO_MIRROR_REPO --username=svnsync --password=svnsyncpassword

The final step is to either add a scheduler (cron.d) script, or a post-commit hook script running the following:

# Example for synchronizing one repository from the post-commit hook
#!/bin/sh
SVNSYNC=/usr/local/bin/svnsync
$SVNSYNC synchronize URL_TO_MIRROR_REPO --username=svnsync --password=svnsyncpassword &
exit 0

Preferably run it from post-commit as it gives better refresh rate.

You can now run the trac against the mirrored subversion server.