James Skemp's StrivingLife

With CollabNet releasing a new version of Subversion Server (1.6.11), and TortoiseSVN having a release a few days earlier, it's time to do an actual update, instead of a comment like I did last time.

Environment

I'm currently running CollabNet Subversion Server version 1.6.9.1 on Windows 7 Home Premium, 64-bit.

The install directory is C:\Program Filies (x86)\CollabNet\Subversion Server\, and I'm installing version 1.6.9.11. These instructions should work, with minor changes, for other versions of CollabNet Subversion and Windows.

Backups and downloads

First make sure you've backed up your repositories, just in case you need to roll back.

Next download CollabNet Subversion Server for your environment. You can also go ahead and and start downloading TortoiseSVN.

Browse to the CollabNet Subversion Server install directory (C:\Program Filies (x86)\CollabNet\Subversion Server\ on my system) and make sure you make a backup of the Apache configuration file, httpd\conf\httpd.conf.

Upgrading CollabNet Subversion Server

In the CollabNet Subversion Server install directory open httpd\bin\ApacheMonitor.exe and stop the currently running instance of Apache, then exit out of Apache Monitor.

Open the Services listing (Administrative Tools > Services) and stop CollabNet Subversion svnserve (or you won't be able to update any DLLs, without uninstalling first).

Start the CollabNet Subversion Server installer and when prompt, click Yes to upgrade.

Go ahead and click through the installer. Since we're upgrading, the settings should be just fine as they are.

Start Apache Monitor back up, and start the instance, or just start the CollabNet Subversion Apache service (you can stop it via this as well).

Test you can access the repository by browsing to it, if enabled, or going into a checked out repository and looking at the log.

Upgrading TortoiseSVN

Start the TortoiseSVN installer, clicking through as usual. To finish, TortoiseSVN will require a restart.

Once your system is back up, browse to a checked out directory and verify that you're able to use base functionality, even going so far as to commit changes to a test repository, as needed.

For a business to implement version control, they typically want some kind of support, preferrably that they need to pay for, and that may or may not be used, and that may or may not be helpful.

Luckily, CollabNet offers certified binaries of Subversion, available for the low price of the time needed to register. Additionally, they offer support, training, installation, and hosted solutions, in addition to the large Subversion community. Compared to the other solutions out there, including Microsoft's, there's really no question on what your first choice should be.

In this article I'll be going over the base installation of CollabNet Subversion Server 1.6.3 and TortoiseSVN 1.6.3.16613, on Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition, Service Pack 2, running on Sun VirtualBox. Screenshots are available by clicking on the appropriate links. (Due to the size, they are not included here, but I might do some jQuery to have them display nicely, at some point.)

Downloading installers

The first step is to download the installers for CollabNet Subversion Server and TortoiseSVN. At this time, the current versions of each are 1.6.3.

Installing CollabNet Subversion Server

CollabNet Subversion Server relies upon Apache to serve repositories, due to the various benefits (security and etcetera) that it provides. However, for this installation I'll assume that you want to keep IIS running and available.

Start the installer and read and click Next on the first and second screens. On the third screen you'll be able to choose whether you want svnserve to run as a Windows service, as well as Apache. For these, you want to keep the default of having both checked.

Assuming you've done that correctly, on the fourth screen you'll be able to choose what port Subversion should use (default is 3690) and the directory to store repositories (default is c:\svn_repository).

On the next screen you'll setup Apache. If you wish to continue running IIS on port 80, you'll need to use a different port (80 changed to 8080 in my case) and/or change the host to a name that IIS is not using. You'll also set where the repositories are being stored (from the previous screen) and what path to use when navigating via HTTP.

You can also enable viewVC, but Active Python 2.5 must be installed. By default viewVC is not enabled (and I don't go through that installation here).

Finally, you'll choose the location to install CollabNet Subversion Server on screen six, and be presented with the Finished screen once the installation is complete, which includes links to CollabNet products and services.

A restart will be required in order to start the necessary services. Once the restart is complete you can verify that you can access Apache through the browser, as well as run the svnadmin --version command to verify that Subversion is installed. See this.

Installing TortoiseSVN

The next step is to install TortoiseSVN. I've covered TortoiseSVN a number of times on this site, and installing this version isn't much different.

Accepting the defaults will get you through the install process (captures: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6), and you'll need to restart once the installation is complete.

Testing repository creation and usage

At this point, you should be set to begin working with Subversion.

Create a new directory in your repository directory (default is C:\svn_repository). Then right-click on the directory and select TortoiseSVN > Create repository here.

The repository will be created, and you can verify by opening the directory as well as navigating to it via HTTP.

We can now checkout a copy by right-clicking anywhere and selecting SVN Checkout ....

Enter the URL of the repository and a checkout directory to continue. See this.

You should then be able to browse to that path and see that you have a current directory. You can then create a test file and commit your changes to verify things are working correctly.

You can make another change, verify that things commit, and then browse, via HTTP or the repository browser, to ensure that you're at the appropriate number of commits.

Next steps

And with that, you've successfully installed CollabNet Subversion Server 1.6.3 and TortoiseSVN 1.6.3. Now you just need to use Subversion during development.

CollabNet also offers free tools for Eclipse and Visual Studio, to help you integrate with your favorite IDE.

You can also play around with the security options that are available due to Apache, to make Subversion as secure as you need it.

The following is how I went about performing an upgrade of Subversion 1.5.4 to Subversion 1.6.0.

For this I'll be continuing to use the current Windows build of Apache 2.2.x, TortoiseSVN, and of course Subversion. At this time, that's Subversion 1.6.0, TortoiseSVN 1.6.0, and Apache 2.2.11.

1. Determine current setup.
   1. Opening the Apache Service Monitor will show the version of Apache and Subversion. In my case, that's 2.2.10 and 1.5.4, respectively.
   2. Opening TortoiseSVN's menu and selecting About will display the current version. In my case that's 1.5.8.
2. Confirm that all applications will work with the new versions of the other applications.
   1. Simply check each application's site. In this case, they all appear to work fine with each other.
3. Download all installers.
   1. Apache: http://httpd.apache.org/
      1. Win32 Binary including OpenSSL 0.9.8i (MSI Installer)
   2. Subversion: http://subversion.tigris.org/
      1. Win32 binaries for Apache 2.2.x
   3. TortoiseSVN: http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/ or http://tortoisesvn.net/ (you'll end up at the latter anyways)
      1. 32 Bit
4. Backup Apache configuration.
   1. You can find the httpd.conf file in the conf directory, in the install directory.
      1. Example: c:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\conf\httpd.conf
5. Stop Apache.
   1. Open the Apache Service Monitor, select the Apache2.2 service, and press the Stop button.
6. Uninstall Apache.
   1. Unfortunately, the installer for a higher version can't seem to run with Apache already installed. So, we have to uninstall it first.
7. Install Apache.
   1. localhost is your friend. If you're installing along-side IIS, keep it at the 'All Users, on Port 80, as a Service' as we'll change this later.
   2. Typical install is fine, at the default location, but feel free to change as needed.
   3. See my Install Apache 2.2.9 to Windows Vista (Ultimate) for a full guide.
8. Verify Apache settings.
   1. My install ran fine, with no configuration settings lost. However, if your httpd.conf is changed, you'll want to do a compare of your backup copy, with the new version.
      1. TortoiseMerge or WinMerge are two excellent applications that will help with this.
   2. Remember to stop the Apache service if you need to make changes.
   3. For this guide, I assume you're running at localhost on port 8080.
   4. The Apache Service Monitor should also display the current version, when the service is selected.
9. Backup Subversion repositories.
   1. I do this in two ways.
      1. First, I backup all repository directories. In my case, I have all my repos in b:\repos\. I simply make a copy of this directory.
      2. Next, I do a dump of all repositories. This basically means I run the following command: svnadmin dump StrivingLife > ..\repos_dump\StrivingLife.dump
         1. dir > list.txt will give me a listing of all repos, which, after a bit of deleting and pasting, ends up with a usable batch file. Add PAUSE to allow yourself some time to read over the results.
10. Stop Apache (if it's running).
11. Extract the zip contents to your Subversion application directory.
    1. Backup the old version of those files, if you so choose.
    2. I installed to C:\Program Files\Subversion\
12. Copy necessary files from Subversion directory to Apache.
    1. In the Subversion bin directory, copy mod_authz_svn.so and mod_dav_svn.so to the Apache modules directory.
    2. In the Subversion bin directory, copy intl3_svn.dll and libsvn_fs-1.dll (or libdb44.dll for Berkeley DB support) to the Apache bin directory.
    3. If you need to make Apache changes (you haven't installed Subversion before), see my Installing Subversion binaries for Apache 2.2.x, otherwise you should be set.
13. Start Apache.
14. Confirm SVN version in Apache Services Monitor.
    1. You may need to Exit and restart the monitor application to see the change.
15. Uninstall TortoiseSVN and restart your computer.
16. Install TortoiseSVN and restart your computer.
    1. Sigh.
    2. The third window has changed, but otherwise see Installing TortoiseSVN to Windows Vista for specifics.
17. Do a test checkout, or browse some repositories.
18. Checkout a working copy of a repository. We've got TortoiseSVN, so let's use it.
19. You can also use the Repository Browser to take a look at some repos.
20. You can also use your browser to browse the repos via the Apache component. Lots of options.
21. Use svnadmin verify repoName to use Subversion to verify revisions.
22. Consider upgrading your repositories.
    1. svnadmin upgrade repoName is the shortcut to upgrade your repository, to get access to any new features.
       1. You'll want to be careful your tools can interact with the new repository version. In our case, we're fine doing so.
       2. Taking the batch file we created to dump all our repositories, and tweaking it slightly, will enable us to upgrade all our repos as well.
    2. Dumping and loading is another way, which keeps things a little cleaner.
23. Celebrate, because you've successfully upgraded.

Questions/comments/concerns are always appreciated. 

This original piece of content was written from 7:40 PM (CT) to 9:45 PM (CT), on March 23 2009.