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UPDATE : svn and http protocol benchmarking is in..

How long it took to checkout the trunk of a project (in minutes and seconds)..

svn protocol : 5:32

http: protocol : 5:33

svn protocol (with AVG folder exception) : 2:22

http protocol (with AVG folder exception) : 2:23

Speed Result : Absolutely nothing in it!

AVG Result : However by telling AVG to ignore my working copy folders checkout time became twice as fast!

ORIGINAL QUESTION :

We currently use VisualSVN Server that I think!? only supports http(s) protocol? (Can someone confirm?)..

I have read here and realise that the svn:// protocol is considerably faster especially with lots of smaller files.

Can anyone recommend the most pain free way of migrating to using a subversion server with the svn:// protocol (even if that means using a different flavour of subversion server).

The machine running VisualSVN Server is a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 box.

Thanks in advance,

-- Lee

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Lee Englestone
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3 Answers3

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recommend the most pain free way of migrating to using a subversion server with the svn:// protocol

Use original Subversion server instead of VisualSVN. Administrating repository is not so hard! Just move to normal SVN and save yourself license costs.

Also I would suggest to stay withing HTTP/HTTPS protocol. In most of cases, protocol is not an issue on Windows work stations. The issue usually your Antivirus and slow NTFS that cause the problems.

General note: checkout on Linux is faster by order of magnitude then on windows station because of the above issue. So I don't believe it would feel any improvements after switching to svn://. Also you may do some simple benchmarking with original Subversion server and check if it improves anything.

Also, working with https allows you (at some point if you want) to put SVN repository in internet and allow users to access it in secure way without VPN.

Artyom
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  • The benchmarking is interesting especially when excluding the working copy path from AVG! 2x faster already. – Lee Englestone Feb 02 '10 at 14:25
  • I've told you, the protocol is far from being the bottleneck of SVN performance on Windows `;-)`, please update when you got the results. – Artyom Feb 02 '10 at 14:29
  • Thanks for pointing to the AVG and getting me to do this benchmarking exercise Artyom! Very helpful. – Lee Englestone Feb 02 '10 at 14:47
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I think it is easy to change from https:///http:// to svn:// protocol in VisualSVN server since there is a svnserve under VisualSVN server. Just to start the svnserve use the command svnserve -d -r <repositories_dir>, then you can use svn:// protocol to access the repositories.

Mark Ursino
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Johnson Hao
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It turns out the problem with subversion update slowdown was NOT due to the protocol (SVN was the same speed as HTTP) but in fact due to AVG scanning every file.

After adding an exception to AVG to ignore my working copy folders updates and checkouts are now more than twice as fast.

How long it took to checkout the trunk of a project (in minutes and seconds)..

svn protocol : 5:32

http: protocol : 5:33

svn protocol (with AVG folder exception) : 2:22

http protocol (with AVG folder exception) : 2:23

Speed Result : Absolutely nothing in it!

AVG Result : However by telling AVG to ignore my working copy folders checkout time became twice as fast!

Lee Englestone
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  • You resolved it years ago. bottleneck is antyvirus. But I think, replacing visualsvn by community svn based on apache is better solution. visualsvn add you no benefit. manual administration community svn is very easy, and highly supported by this portal for example. But you will get a lot of features, for example.... integration with windows domain by kerberos. it is supported by windows tortoise, and dommand line community svn when you are looged on windows and domain, or by kerberos from linux. additionally you can detaily manage access rights. you can do it by windows groups assigment. – Znik May 13 '19 at 10:59