Hi Daniel,
[... snip ...]
Which protocol do you use for accessing the repository? (svn info --show-item
url should give the url, the protocol is the first part)
[Mun] svn:
Thanks for checking! Then we need to look at svnserve.
Can you figure out how it is started? It can be run either in daemon mode
(starting as a standalone daemon using the -d | --daemon argument) or started
from [x]inetd (using the -i | --inetd argument).
[Mun] Our system admin said he manually starts the server after a reboot using
the following command: svnserve -d -r /SVN/RSVL/repos
Do you see anything in the server log files?
[Mun] Our Linux Administrator stated he didn’t see anything pertinent in the
server logs. Is there any way to increase verbosity or something so as to log
debug information?
I haven't used svnserve myself in production so I'm a little bit in the dark
here, but if I'm reading the code correctly you need to add the --log-file
FILENAME argument when you start svnserve. How to do this depends on if you run
the service as a daemon or from x[inetd], and also depends on your Linux
distribution.
[Mun] We tried with the logs enabled but there wasn’t any additional
information present.
Is it a large repository and could it by any chance be a network issue, where
the network connection times out while Subversion is trying to find the
revision number corresponding with the date?
[Mun] I wouldn’t necessarily consider it a large repository—but it’s not small
either. Your network issue concern is interesting since the server is now at a
different corporate site. However, empirically I would have expected that
perhaps the issue would be intermittent if it were a network issue. This
problem occurs every time I’ve tried the command—even at different times of the
day. Not that that proves anything—it’s just meant to be a data point.
I’ve tried the command in a branch that isn’t very large—but maybe that doesn’t
make a difference if it’s the total repository size that makes a difference—and
I still had the same issue with ‘svn up -r {DATE}’.
These are valid points. There could still be a network issue, for example a
package inspecting firewall that trigger on something when you run svn up -r
{DATE}, but I agree this seems unlikely. Still, to rule out network issues, can
you try the same command on the svn server itself or at least from a computer
on the same site/network? If you don't have access, maybe the Linux admins can
help you out.
[Mun] This was a good thought… I tried it from another computer on the same
network and the command worked. So, it does in fact appear to be some kind of
network configuration issue.
Thank you very much for the insights and assistance! I will work with our IT
team at this point to try and get to a resolution.
Best regards,
--
Mun
