Setting up SVN for Home backup

Adding Subversion SVN source control to your home server is a great hack for backing up your important files. I was using SyncBack by BrightSparks for my back ups and still do for some files, it’s very easy to use and has a lot of useful configuration options. Sometime you need an older version of a file and source control is extremely usefully in getting older versions. I wanted the ability to easily get older versions of Picture and video files and work on editing file without worrying about changing and deleting content.

Heres my quick start guide for setting up SVN for Home backup

1.       Install Subversion, I installed the CollabNet version with the default options and had no problems but you may to scan this web site first http://subversion.apache.org/packages.html and pick the one that fits you environment.

2.       Create the Repository, Create at least one repo for backing up your files

a.       Command:> svnadmin create c:\svn_repository\MyFiles

b.      I create separate repo’s for each class of files I want backups of. Like Photo, Documents, Source, Music and Video. Photo repo for all my digital photographs and a Documents repo for all my Office files and you get the rest.

3.       Next you want Verify you can connect to your repository

a.       Command:> svn list svn://localhost/MyFiles

4.       Other this you might want to do

a.       Change the password

b.      I recommend using TortoiseSVN  http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/ it much easier than using the command line utill.