RE: Am thinking of using subversion as a general purpose filing s ystem

> No, it isn't safe. All access to the database requires write access,
> that's just an artifact of how berkeley db works.

You're talking about using a BerkeleyDB tool
that indexes the database. Yes, that requires
write access to the database.

I'm talking about using a filesystem based tool
that indexes all files on the filesystem according
to what it can grep out of the file contents.
Such filesystem based tools typically open the
files they are going to index read-only.

> It doesn't matter if it would be 'more convenient' to run backup
> utilites over a network drive connection, it's still not safe, so you
> still risk corrupting your repository by doing so.

Ditto.

You're talking about running the database's backup utility.

I'm talking about running the filesystem's backup utility.

Yes: filesystem oriented backups of databases are often
quite useless: the database may not be in a consistent state.
Using a database often means developing a completely new backup
discipline.

But what I am asking about is whether the filesystem based
backup tool that is currently being run, that has read-only
access to the files in which the Berkely DB lives, can corrupt
the Berkeley DB. I hope that it can't.

---
You say "don't do that".
That's easy when I am the sysadmin, e.g. of my systems at home.
It's hard when I am not the sysadmin - e.g. when my project
is using diskspace that has been granted us by corporate IT,
or if I want to do something like run a Subversion repository
on some web hosting site.  I have almost no control over the
logical arrangement of filesystems. 
   It's highly unlikely that anyone else is running 
Berkeley DB tools against my data.
   But it's highly likely that they are running filesystem
read-only indexing tools, backup tools, snapshot tools, etc.
on the filesystem that holds my data.  
My question is whether such filesystem read-only access can
screw up a Subversion repository.  As I think about it,
I doubt that there is a problem.  But I was initially scared
by some of the language in the book.
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