mezzoblue: Sneakernet SVN

By Bramus!, at 07:53:02 on 2008-08-20.

2008-08-20T07:53:02-08:00

Using an USB stick as SVN repo too here. Not using an encrypted disk image on it though (that, and the fact that my main machine still is my XP box ... recently switched over).

Never would've thought about it; Just ingenious!

By Darren, at 08:49:15 on 2008-08-20.

2008-08-20T08:49:15-08:00

I do have a suggestion for you that will eliminate the double-eject requirement.

1. Back up the data on your encrypted volume.
2. Install TrueCrypt (http://www.truecrypt.org)
3. Wipe the USB key
4. Use TrueCrypt to make the whole USB key one encrypted volume.
5. Put your data back on this volume

Now, you still need to do an extra step when you mount the USB key (mounting it via TrueCrypt), but you don't have to double-eject.

This also has the following advantages:

* You can select the crypto algorithm (though I agree that AES-128 is plenty)
* TrueCrypt is available for Windows too, so your image is portable to OS X, Win2000, XP, and Vista.

By Jacob Harvey, at 09:54:08 on 2008-08-20.

2008-08-20T09:54:08-08:00

Interesting alternative. I can't imagine dragging the drive back and forth.

I actually have the "server" portion set up on my Mac and then I can check things out locally (the usual) or over the network to another machine. I found the hardest part was getting svnserve setup in Leopard. Maybe someday I'll add in a sync/backup of the repositories to a remote location, but for now my local backup is sufficient.

By Frank, at 20:43:19 on 2008-08-21.

2008-08-21T20:43:19-08:00

I'm with Darren with using TrueCrypt but I'm not 100% sure it works on Mac's. If you want the "ultimate" in encrypted UBS keys check out IronKey (https://www.ironkey.com/).

By Jeff, at 13:15:29 on 2008-08-22.

2008-08-22T13:15:29-08:00

I've been doing this myself for a while, for all of the same reasons. For my setup I added a linux box to house the repos and then hooked everything together with a Hamachi VPN. I suppose you could do the same by leaving the USB key in one of the machines and making it the server.

By Christopher Werby, at 08:16:40 on 2008-08-28.

2008-08-28T08:16:40-08:00

Like you, I just adopted Subversion for all my client work, even though in most cases I'm the only one accessing it. I'm using Dreamhost as the Subversion server. It's a bit slow for big commits, but has worked well for me. I also like Cornerstone very much.

The one piece of the puzzle that bothers me is that Subversion doesn't support the resource forks of Mac files. Not an issue mostly except for Applescripts which come back into the working copy as 0 byte files. My workaround is to always include a ZIP version of any Applescript that has to be refreshed as the script is updated. The 0 byte file can be deleted and replaced by the version protected inside the ZIP file.

By Berta Berlin, at 07:15:09 on 2008-09-11.

2008-09-11T07:15:09-08:00

Two more issues: When your files grow your stick will not only be to small, it will also become to slow. Data transfer is usual about a fifth of i.e. USB drives.
And a pretty cool solution to encryption: There are drives with build in finger print readers! Encryption is done by the hardware inside of this drives, independent from your OS.

Anyway, I prefer to use a https-svn repository on the net (for reasons already mentioned here).

By Lorenzo Bolognini, at 05:13:08 on 2008-09-12.

2008-09-12T05:13:08-08:00

Hi Dave,

just use Assembla.com it's free and they provide SVN, even with Trac integration. But I prefer keeping all my docs under Google Documents.

By Matt, at 22:20:45 on 2008-09-17.

2008-09-17T22:20:45-08:00

Like other commentators, I would strongly recommend a server if you're using subversion. The centralized repository method just really lends itself to a server. I tried the SVN + USB route and gave up after I lost one drive, then accidentally broke another, then kept forgetting to bring my USB drive with me. You may not be worried about losing your revision history, but it's still a pain to create a new repository from the working copy.

If you're using a USB drive I'd encourage you to consider a distributed system like git or Mercurial. Then, your entire repository (history and all) will be in three places. And git makes it really, really, really easy to create new branches to try out ideas.

By Dave, at 14:10:46 on 2008-11-06.

2008-11-06T14:10:46-08:00

I tried the two computer thing for a while, and it began to become a real pain in the butt trying to keep everything synchronized. I eventually realized it was just easier to use my
notebook solely.