SVN remote to local setup for beginner

Question

Hello, I'm new to using Subversion and have just set up the following - SVN on a remote server and SVN on a local PC. I have created a repo on the remote server at /repos, then i (svn) imported a live website's files into that repo. I then checked out (using svn+ssh) a working copy to my local PC, directly into a local LAMP setup under /var/www, so that I can preview any changes i make on a local web server, before committing back to the remote repo. Two questions really - is this a sensible set up for a beginner? Is it ok that I don't actually have a working copy on the remote server, just the main repo for each site?

Also, how can i use svn:ignore properly to avoid checkout database config files and useless directories like mail, log, tmp etc? I've looked at the book and am still not entirely sure, any help appreciated!

Answer 1

svn:ignore is not used to avoid checking things out, but to avoid checking things in. You should remove those files from your repository, and then set the svn:ignore property on your working copy so that they will not be inadvertantly checked back in.

You can use svn delete --keep-local on your working copy, and then commit to have the files removed from the repository.

As for your setup, you would not want to have a working copy on the remote server; instead, to deploy the files, you would use svn export of a known good revision.

Answer 2

Your setup sounds very sensible. You seem to have confused your naming though, which probably leads to your insecurity: The place where all revisions are stored is called a "repository". The place where you have a (copy of a) specific revision to work with it, is called the "working directory" or short "checkout". You can have as many checkouts as you need from a single repository.

As Michael noted, it can make sense to use svn export instead of checkout to avoid publishing the .svn/ on your production server.