Using subversion on a LAN

Hi,

This is a follow-up to a thread that I started on the users mailing list.

In brief, I had set up a subversion repository on a network drive and then
tried to have multiple people access it with the file:/// URL syntax. (I
know, I know, I should have read the FAQ)

Anyway, it didn't work, so we switched back to Visual SourceSafe (VSS)

We have VSS set up so that the repository is on a shared network drive.
Somehow VSS has a locking mechanism that keeps the different clients from
hosing the repository. Would it be possible to add something similar to
Subversion? I would guess it might work something like this:

        1) User A does an initial checkout by typing

                svn checkout lan:///k:/logpars/subverion/powerLOGJ/trunk

        2) svn notices that the URL protocol is lan, (or nfs or whatever
bogus protocol you like). It determines that K:\logpars\subversion\powerLOGJ
is the directory holding the Subversion repository, so it checks to see if a
file (let's call it lan.lock) exists in that directory. If it does, it
aborts and tells the user that someone else is currently using the
repository and they should try again in a couple of minutes. If not, it
creates lan.lock itself.

        3) Assuming we were able to lock the repository, we do the checkout

        4) We delete lan.lock

        5) All done

I guess the big question is, is there a way to check for the existence of a
lock file, and then create it, without introducing a bunch of nasty race
conditions?

OK, I'm done. Flame away!

David Kopp
General Engineer
USAMC LOGSA
(256) 955 - 9902
Received on Fri Oct 24 15:23:56 2003