Lack of clarity in description on "svnadmin verify"
C. Michael Pilato
cmpilato at red-bean.com
Wed Mar 21 20:46:56 CDT 2007
Julian Seward wrote:
> Hi. I'd like to report a lack of clarity in the description of
> "svnadmin verify" in the otherwise excellent book. I have checked
> the latest nightly build of the book (r2744), the FAQ and to some
> extent the mailing lists and could not find a clear answer.
>
> The question is very simple. Periodically I like to check the
> backups of our (valgrind.org's) repo using svnadmin verify. Since I
> have no desire to read the entire output, what I do is
>
> svnadmin verify REPOS_PATH | tail -1
>
> and check that the last line printed, eg
>
> * Verified revision 6653.
>
> contains a revision number close to what I know is the most recent
> revision.
>
> The problem is I don't know what svnadmin does if it finds trouble
> and none of the documentation helps. Does it stop at that point?
> Does it print a "this revision is hosed" message and keep going?
> In short, if it prints the message above, am I guaranteed that
> all revs <= 6653 are OK, or only that 6653 is OK ?
If a problem is found, 'svnadmin verify' bails immediately with an error.
> The Book (r2744, p281) says only
>
> Run this command if you wish to verify the integrity of your
> repository. This basically iterates through all revisions
> in the repository by internally dumping all revisions and
> discarding the output.
>
> I think it would help to add a couple of sentences addressing this
> point, for the benefit of repo admins like me who want to automate
> verification of their repos. (Plus I still don't know the answer!)
>
> Specifying a bit more clearly what "verify the integrity"
> really means would also be no bad thing. If svnadmin verify
> comes up clean, what does that really tell me?
These are good suggestions. Thanks!
--
C. Michael Pilato <cmpilato at red-bean.com>
"The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has
been found difficult; and left untried." -- G. K. Chesterton
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