jthornsby's WANdisco Blog

Subversion Tip of the Week

Published by jthornsby on February 20, 2012 in General, Subversion, Tip of the Week and WANdisco. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

The Undo Button!

In the world of software development, client requirements change and new features can introduce more bugs than they fix – sometimes, you just need an ‘undo’ button! Thankfully, Apache Subversion remembers every change made to its files and directories, so you can roll back to a revision before it all went wrong! There are several methods for reverting to a previous version:

1) svn revert {filename} - this command overrides any local changes made to the working copy, with the code in the repository.

To run this command in TortoiseSVN, select ‘Revert…’ from the TortoiseSVN menu.

You will then be able to specify which changes you wish to implement. In this example, we are re-adding the ‘Help file.’

2) svn merge -r {revision number} – this command performs a reverse merge by rolling back to a change that has already been committed to the repository, and then applying it to the local working copy.
3) Alternatively, it is possible to simply delete your working copy and then checkout a fresh working copy from the repository.

WANdisco Updates Subversion Access Control

Published by jthornsby on February 16, 2012 in General, Subversion and WANdisco. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

We’re pleased to announce a substantial update to our complete authorization, audit and access control solution for Enterprise Subversion, Subversion Access Control.

Subversion Access Control 4.1 is an innovative security solution for Apache Subversion that provides full audit, authorization and access control capabilities that go well beyond what Subversion offers on its own. Some of the key benefits to employing Access Control include:

  • Delegated administration option that allows the root administrator to create teams and delegate administration authority to team leaders.
  • Automatic synchronization of Subversion Access Control with LDAP user and group configuration. Subversion Access Control automatically picks up LDAP user and group membership changes and assigns new users to the Subversion team that corresponds to their LDAP group.
  • Comprehensive audit capabilities that report every repository access attempt down to the file level, showing user, Subversion command, date and time and whether access was allowed or denied. Security administrators receive immediate alerts for any access violations.
  • Can be implemented standalone or in combination with Subversion MultiSite 4.1 for distributed development teams. With Subversion MultiSite, security policy changes made at one location are immediately replicated to every other to enforce consistency across all sites.

Subversion Access Control 4.1 is a substantial update for the product, not only adding a list of new functionality, but completely overhauling the underlying access model. The access control lists previously required to maintain complex security policies, have been replaced by an all-new, streamlined approach that applies access rules to hierarchical teams. For more information on what’s new and noteworthy in this update, see the Release Notes.

WANdisco will be hosting a free hour-long ‘Introducing Subversion Access Control 4.1’ webinar on April 12th. Early registration is recommended, as space is limited.

Extending Jenkins with uberSVN

Published by jthornsby on February 15, 2012 in General, Subversion, uberSVN and WANdisco. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

Installing Jenkins is made easy with our free, open ALM platform for Apache Subversion, uberSVN. But when installed through uberSVN, your Jenkins installation contains only the bare minimum; at some point you will want to extend your uberSVN and Jenkins installation with additional plugins. Thankfully, this is made easy with uberSVN, as any number of new plugins can be added without ever leaving your installation.

Start by going to the ‘Jenkins’ tab, followed by the ‘Manage Jenkins’ option on the left side of the screen, and finally selecting the ‘Manage Plugins’ link.

From here, click on the ‘Available’ tab, which will bring up a list of all the plugins you can add to Jenkins.

Scroll down to see the list of available plugins. If you need some more information on a particular plugin, clicking on the name of the plugin will take you to a product page where you can browse all the relevant information about the plugin in question, including the changelog, maintainers, and the date of the most current release.

If you wish to install the plugin, go back to the ‘Available’ page and select the tickbox on the left. When you have finished selecting plugins to install, scroll to the bottom of the screen and hit the ‘Install’ button.

The plugin will now be downloaded. Note that Jenkins will need to be restarted for these changes to take effect.

Once you have restarted Jenkins, go to the ‘Installed’ tab in the ‘Manage Plugins’ screen. You will see that the plugin you have just downloaded has been added to the Installed list.

Jenkins is available for free through uberSVN. Visit http://www.ubersvn.com/ now to download uberSVN. A professional support option for Jenkins is also available.

Using uberAPPS? Have your say on uberAPPS at the official forum!

Apache Subversion 1.7.3 Released

Published by jthornsby on February 13, 2012 in General, Subversion and WANdisco. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

The first Apache Subversion release of 2012 is now available! Subversion 1.7.3 builds on the long-awaited enhancements of the recent Subversion 1.7 release, by introducing even more improvements. Subversion 1.7.3 improves the SASL error messages, allows committing the result of some copy operations, and fixes a source of possible FSFS corruption.

More information on what’s new and noteworthy in this release, is available at the Changes file. The latest binaries can be downloaded for free from the WANdisco website. As ever, our 1.7.3 binaries undergo the same rigorous quality assurance process as our Enterprise Subversion products.

Congratulations to Apache Subversion’s community of developers, contributors and users, on another great release!

Subversion Tip of the Week

Published by jthornsby on February 13, 2012 in General, Subversion, Tip of the Week and WANdisco. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Moving a Subversion Repository

Need to move your Apache Subversion repository? In Subversion, the recommended cause of action is to collect all of the data contained within your repository into a single, portable dump file, and then load the data from the dump file into a new repository. To create the dump file, either run:

svnadmin dump

Or, specify a particular revision to dump, or a range of revisions:

svnadmin dump myrepos –revision

Once you have dumped the data from the original repository, you will need to load the data from the dump file into your new repository. To load the dump file, run the following command in the new location:

svnadmin load {REPOS_PATH}

All your data will now be available in the new repository!

It’s useful to keep in mind that dump files are typically larger than the original repository. This can cause the shell to timeout when loading a dump file into a new repository. If this occurs, you can change the bash shell timeout to load indefinitely, with the following command:

export TMOUT =0

WANdisco Launches All-New uberSVN Starter Packs

Published by jthornsby on February 9, 2012 in General, Subversion, uberSVN and WANdisco. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Last month, we announced an exciting new partnership with our friends at uTest, bringing their software testing services to uberSVN’s uberAPPS store, and extended our partnership with CloudBees, to offer professional support for Jenkins to uberAPPS users. We’re following this with even more exciting new additions to the uberAPPS store, including a new approach to uberSVN support.

At WANdisco, we always appreciate your feedback, and after being contacted by organizations looking for short-term professional support for uberSVN, we’ve created the all-new, uberSVN Starter Packs. These packs give you access to three hours of support, with the option of purchasing additional hours as required.

We’ve also added professional support for TortoiseSVN to the app store, giving uberSVN users easy access to mail and phone support, feature enhancements, online case tracking, and more, all with guaranteed response times. Stefan Küng, the TortoiseSVN project’s lead developer since 2003, heads our team of professionals dedicated to delivering the support, development and enhancement you need, to get the most out of TortoiseSVN.

Existing uberSVN users can visit uberAPPS from inside their installation, for all the latest info on purchasing both professional TortoiseSVN support and uberSVN Starter Packs. Not yet downloaded uberSVN? Check out some of the feedback we’ve been getting from users, about this award-winning, open ALM platform for Subversion.

uberSVN is free to download and free to use – visit http://www.ubersvn.com/ now to get started.

Using uberAPPS? Have your say on uberAPPS at the official forum!

WANdisco Announces Unlimited Vacation Policy

Published by jthornsby on February 9, 2012 in General and WANdisco. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

At WANdisco, we like to do things a little differently, so we’re announcing our all-new vacation policy, by announcing that there is no vacation policy! Effective immediately, all WANdisco employees will be able to take as much paid vacation as they need to stay the same productive, enthusiastic employees who made this company what it is today.

As a software company, we’re dedicated to keeping our range of world-beating, Subversion-based products on the cutting edge, and we feel our company culture should be as forwards-looking as our products.

We’re sure you’ll agree that the way we work has changed forever – the Internet has made it possible to work without even being in the office, and has opened up a 24-7, worldwide market. The traditional Monday-Friday, 9-5 working day is a thing of the past. In this rapidly-changing working culture, we’ve been fortunate to have some of the most dedicated staff in the business. It’s time to give something back.

We realize that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find the time to recharge, but we all know that down-time is essential to remaining productive and happy (not to mention sane!) in the workplace. So, we’re excited to give WANdisco employees the freedom to take as much vacation as they need, when they need it. After all, no-one knows when you need a break, better than you!

This is just the latest step we’ve taken to ensure WANdisco’s staff actually enjoy coming to work (we never really understood why this was such a revolutionary idea in the first place!) And what better way to let off some steam inbetween producing our award-winning open ALM platform for Subversion, than with a heated, office darts competition, a few rounds of table tennis, or a trip down the office slide?

As you’ve probably already guessed, at WANdisco we work hard, but we always find the time to have fun, and that extends to nights out. We don’t believe in stuffy, company enforced fun – that stuff makes us cringe! But we do believe that employees who socialize, and have a laugh together, work better together. With this in mind, every quarter we all get together and nominate a Social Captain, whose solemn duty it is to organize fun nights out and day-trip adventures – and of course, they get to wear the captain’s hat for a few months.

All in all, we think WANdisco is a pretty special place to work. We are lucky to be in a position where we can trust our employees to judge for themselves how much vacation time they need to remain productive, and continue contributing to WANdisco’s success. We want to thank our employees, for being such an awesome team!

WANdisco Go Green!

Published by jthornsby on February 7, 2012 in General and WANdisco. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

WANdisco has a company-wide policy of limiting our carbon footprint and being environmentally responsible with all of our business activities. We already implement a paper-free office, and the majority of our workforce keep their own carbon emissions down by walking or cycling to work. But, to ensure WANdisco is as green as it can possibly be, we now appoint a quarterly Green Captain. Our Green Captain manages the office’s recycling policy, ensures the company carpooling strategy runs smoothly, and generally makes sure that WANdisco is an all-round eco-friendly places to work.

WANdisco’s first ever Green Captain is graphic and web designer Ben Fraser. Ben is behind all the graphics you see at the WANdisco and uberSVN websites, our blog, newsletters and more. When he’s not coming up with new designs for WANdisco, Ben produces electronic music, DJs and runs his Sabretooth Records label.

We are also pleased to announce that in 2012 WANdisco are stepping up their involvement with the local community, by getting involved in charities based in Sheffield, UK. Stay tuned for more posts on how WANdisco has been helping out the local community!

What You’re Saying About uberSVN

Published by jthornsby on February 7, 2012 in General, Subversion, uberSVN and WANdisco. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

At WANdisco, we’re always excited to hear from the community, and we’ve been overwhelmed by the great feedback we’ve received from uberSVN users. Here is a selection of the comments you’ve sent us, about our award winning, open ALM platform for Apache Subversion.

  • Great work, very easy install, so now I can focus on coding instead of on installing svn again.
  • Thanks for making me aware of this ubersvn.com installed on Windows server with ease
  • I installed uberSVN in less than 5 minutes on my iMAC running OS X Lion in less than 5 minutes this morning!
  • It looks very promising, the setup was a breeze.
  • @WANdisco @uberSVN you guys are awesome. Seriously the first svn installer for linux that *just works* =)
  • The installation itself is as easy as 1 2 3, streamlined updates are amazing (To be perfectly honest I was worrying about updating it; all the worries were in vain) and the fact that it works is what makes me happy.

  • I think this is a great value point for uberSVN. I have had to learn to install and administrate Subversion, MediaWiki, Mantis Bug tracker, and Jenkins. However I was hired to write software and that’s what I love. All of this administrating, while also a fun puzzle, is cutting into my software time. Backup and bare metal restore is a concern as all these diverse tools and stacks need to be configured or work with various 3rd party plugins, etc. Centralized management of these diverse but useful tools is a goal that I think will be rewarded and well appreciated. I wish you success and hope to start using uberSVN for production work soon!

  • It sure is better than what we were doing in the past… create a build, copy the build to a build and date specific folder, and then copy that folder to two other computers and hope that all of the code writers read each other’s code. At this point we’re good to go.
  • Just wanted to thank all of you for the amazing job that has been done in uberSVN.
  • Congratulations to WANdisco and their innovative techniques in source code management
  • uberSVN is working flawlessy and setting it up has been really fast and easy. I have only good words regarding the product, your company and its commitment to open source and the Apache Foundation (I’m an ASF member and committer myself in my spare time).
  • The software itself is amazing, the GUI is so user friendly that anybody could do it.
  • Great product! Was looking for this for years.
  • I was trying to get remote SVN working properly for ages.. took about 20 minutes with ubersvn.com, works perfectly
  • Moved home repos to uberSVN, best SVNserver GUI I’ve seen. Will have to have a look at the enterprise offerings… ubersvn.com

Are you using uberSVN? Then we’d love to hear your thoughts! Simply post a comment at the blog, or email or Tweet us. And, if you’ve yet to try uberSVN, then why not give it a go? It’s free to download, and free to use, and comes integrated with an uberAPPS store, which contains useful apps for Subversion developers, such as Jenkins and uTest.

We hope you enjoy using uberSVN!

Subversion Tip of the Week

Published by jthornsby on February 6, 2012 in General, Subversion, Tip of the Week and WANdisco. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

Recovering Deleted Items

If you delete an item from your Apache Subversion repository and need to recover it at a later date, a useful tip is to locate the desired file in a revision before it was removed, and copy it back into the repository. The first step, is to run a search in the directory that used to contain the deleted item:

svn log -verbose

This will list all of the changed items in each revision, allowing you to pinpoint the revision where you deleted the file.

Now you have located the file, you can perform a reverse merge, which will re-add the desired file to your working copy:

svn merge {revision number}

Perform a commit, and the file will once again exist in the repository. Alternatively, the ‘svn copy’ command can be used, along with the revision number you located earlier:

svn copy {revision number}