Steps to migrate from SVN to GitLab

gistfile1.md

Steps to migrate from SVN to GitLab

This process worked for me. I take no responsibility for any damage or loss incurred as a result of following or not following these steps or, for that matter, anything else you might do or not do.

Setup

• SVN is hosted at svn.domain.com.au.
• SVN is accessible via http (other protocols should work).
• GitLab is hosted at git.domain.com.au and:
  • A group is created with the namespace dev-team.
  • At least one user account is created, added to the group, and has an SSH key for the account being used for the migration (test using ssh [email protected]).
  • The project favourite-project is created in the dev-team namespace.
• The file users.txt contains the relevant user details, one user per line, of the form username = First Last <[email protected]>, where username is the username given in SVN logs. (See first link in References section for details, in particular answer by user Casey).

Versions

• subversion version 1.6.17 (r1128011)
• git version 1.9.1
• GitLab version 7.2.1 ff1633f
• Ubuntu server 14.04

Commands

git svn clone --stdlayout --no-metadata -A users.txt http://svn.domain.com.au/svn/repository/favourite-project
cd favourite-project
git remote add gitlab [email protected]:dev-team/favourite-project.git
git push --set-upstream gitlab master

That's it! Reload the project page in GitLab web UI and you will see all commits and files now listed.

Notes

• If there are unknown users, the git svn clone command will stop, in which case, update users.txt, cd favourite-project and git svn fetch will continue from where it stopped.
• The standard trunk-tags-branches layout for SVN repository is required.
• The SVN URL given to the git svn clone command stops at the level immediately above trunk/, tags/ and branches/.
• The git svn clone command produces a lot of output, including some warnings at the top; I ignored the warnings.

References

• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/79165/migrate-svn-repository-with-history-to-a-new-git-repository/3972103
• https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/blob/master/doc/raketasks/import.md (this method didn't work for me)
• https://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlabhq/issues/4137 (describes why the above didn't work)
• https://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlab-shell/issues/32

Also, there is an official migration documentation for gitlab.

Props. Thanks a lot for this. I've used it with fairly satisfying success. Muchas mcfrickken gracias! (specifically, I followed the gitlab docs for svn -> git -> gitlab first, then I used this to get my tickets & milestones

I got a empty repo after a very long list of files printed to the screen ending with this

Found possible branch point: svn://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/ios/MobileUniversal/trunk => svn://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/ios/MobileUniversal/branches/mantis681_jfwork, 3246
Use of uninitialized value $u in substitution (s///) at /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr/share/git-core/perl/Git/SVN.pm line 101.
Use of uninitialized value $u in concatenation (.) or string at /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr/share/git-core/perl/Git/SVN.pm line 101.
refs/remotes/origin/trunk: 'svn://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/ios' not found in ''

It is also possible to create GitLab mirror of existing SVN project via SubGit, see instructions.

I am a noobie on this.

I get 'Can't create session' error when i want to access the svn that using https. What should i do ?

Thanks in advance.

maybe I am too late here but I created script maybe it would help anyone in need

#!/usr/bin/env sh

echo Please provide svn project repo :
read svnRepo

echo Please provide git project repo :
read gitRepo

echo Please provide svn project name :
read projectName

root="${projectName}_root"
svnDir="${projectName}_svn"
gitDir="${projectName}_git"

mkdir -p $root
cd $root

mkdir -p $svnDir
cd $svnDir

svn checkout $svnRepo

cd $projectName

svn log -q | awk -F '|' '/^r/ {sub("^ ", "", $2); sub(" $", "", $2); print $2" = "$2" <"$2">"}' | sort -u > ../../users.txt

cd ../../

read -p "Press [Enter] key to confirm the users.txt file is updated with valid accounts which are present in git."

mkdir -p $gitDir
cd $gitDir

git svn clone --stdlayout --no-metadata -A ../users.txt $svnRepo

cd $projectName

for t in $(git for-each-ref --format='%(refname:short)' refs/remotes/tags); do git tag ${t/tags//} $t && git branch -D -r $t; done

for b in $(git for-each-ref --format='%(refname:short)' refs/remotes); do git branch $b refs/remotes/$b && git branch -D -r $b; done

git remote add origin $gitRepo

read -p "Press [Enter] key to confirm force push branches, tags into git."

git push -f --all

read -p "Press [Enter] key to quit the program."

@swanandmehta you are just in time ;)