Symlinks on Windows

[Bengt Nilsson]

Hi!
We have a SVN-server running on Windows and there we get problem with symlinks.
If we put up a SVN-server on a Linux-server would that work better with the symlinks although the clients (TortoiseSVN) are on Windows?
Or do we have to have clients on Linux as well?

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[Branko Čibej]

Post by Bengt Nilsson
Hi!
We have a SVN-server running on Windows and there we get problem with symlinks.

What problem? The server should work just fine on Windows and it doesn't
use symlinks for anything.

Post by Bengt Nilsson
If we put up a SVN-server on a Linux-server would that work better
with the symlinks although  the clients (TortoiseSVN) are on Windows?
Or do we have to have clients on Linux as well?

I don't know, you haven't described what you're trying to do.

-- Brane

[Pavel Lyalyakin]

Hello,

Post by Bengt Nilsson
Hi!
We have a SVN-server running on Windows and there we get problem with symlinks.
If we put up a SVN-server on a Linux-server would that work better with
the symlinks although the clients (TortoiseSVN) are on Windows?
Or do we have to have clients on Linux as well?

Please, see SVNBook | Versioning Symbolic Links
<http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.8/svn.tour.cycle.html> (scroll down to
the "Versioning Symbolic Links" section). Is this what you are asking about?

If the answer is "yes", then the platform where the SVN server runs does
not matter. You need the clients to be on Linux, but the server can be on
Windows.

[Albertsen, Ketil]

So where did this idea about “
 working copies on systems such as Windows that do not support symlinks” come from? NTFS supports symlinks, and has supported it for many years. If my memory is correct, it wasn’t avialable in the CLI interface, cmd.exe, utntil long after the file system API provided it – but now we are talking history!

From: Pavel Lyalyakin <***@visualsvn.com>
Sent: 1 November, 2018 17:49
To: Bengt Nilsson <***@veoneer.com>
Cc: ***@subversion.apache.org
Subject: Re: Symlinks on Windows

Hello,

On Thu, Nov 1, 2018 at 6:39 PM, Bengt Nilsson <***@veoneer.com<mailto:***@veoneer.com>> wrote:
Hi!
We have a SVN-server running on Windows and there we get problem with symlinks.
If we put up a SVN-server on a Linux-server would that work better with the symlinks although the clients (TortoiseSVN) are on Windows?
Or do we have to have clients on Linux as well?

Please, see SVNBook | Versioning Symbolic Links<http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.8/svn.tour.cycle.html> (scroll down to the "Versioning Symbolic Links" section). Is this what you are asking about?

If the answer is "yes", then the platform where the SVN server runs does not matter. You need the clients to be on Linux, but the server can be on Windows.

[Branko Čibej]

So where did this idea about “… working copies on systems such as
Windows that do not support symlinks” come from?

It comes from a time when Windows did not support symlinks. However ...

NTFS supports symlinks, and has supported it for many years.

... it's not so simple. Even though NTFS supports symlinks, there are
two problems:

* Symlinks to files and symlinks to directories are different on
Windows, whereas Unix doesn't care. Obviously Subversion doesn't
know what the target of the symlink is supposed to be.
* You need special permissions to create a symlink. You either have to
be in Administrator mode, or — if the code is written differently —
have the Development Mode turned on. The vast majority of users
aren't able to create them.


And, of course, NTFS is not the only filesystem people can use,
Subversion would have to decide on a case-by-case basis if the
filesystem where the working copy is stored supports symbolic links.
This is, however, a minor problem compared to the other two.

If my memory is correct, it wasn’t avialable in the CLI interface,
cmd.exe, utntil long after the file system API provided it – but now
we are talking history!

For the reasons mentioned above, supporting symbolic links on Windows is
a much more complex problem than you think. Even if we somehow solved
the file/directory link problem, adding a feature that requires special
permissions to use is a non-starter.


-- Brane

*Sent:* 1 November, 2018 17:49
*Subject:* Re: Symlinks on Windows
 
Hello,
 
On Thu, Nov 1, 2018 at 6:39 PM, Bengt Nilsson
Hi!
We have a SVN-server running on Windows and there we get problem with symlinks.
If we put up a SVN-server on a Linux-server would that work better
with the symlinks although  the clients (TortoiseSVN) are on Windows?
Or do we have to have clients on Linux as well?
 
Please, see SVNBook | Versioning Symbolic Links
<http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.8/svn.tour.cycle.html> (scroll down
to the "Versioning Symbolic Links" section). Is this what you are
asking about?
 
If the answer is "yes", then the platform where the SVN server runs
does not matter. You need the clients to be on Linux, but the server
can be on Windows.
 
--
With best regards,
Pavel Lyalyakin
VisualSVN Team

[Robert Heller]

So where did this idea about "...Š working copies on systems such as
Windows that do not support symlinks" come from? NTFS supports symlinks,
and has supported it for many years. If my memory is correct, it wasn't
avialable in the CLI interface, cmd.exe, utntil long after the file system
API provided it - but now we are talking history!

MS-Windows file systems (FAT, NTFS) don't support POSIX-style symlinks. There
is some hack that *sort of* implements *something like* a symlink, but it is
not really the same.

Sent: 1 November, 2018 17:49
Subject: Re: Symlinks on Windows
Hello,
Hi!
We have a SVN-server running on Windows and there we get problem with symlinks.
If we put up a SVN-server on a Linux-server would that work better with the symlinks although the clients (TortoiseSVN) are on Windows?
Or do we have to have clients on Linux as well?
Please, see SVNBook | Versioning Symbolic Links<http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.8/svn.tour.cycle.html> (scroll down to the "Versioning Symbolic Links" section). Is this what you are asking about?
If the answer is "yes", then the platform where the SVN server runs does not matter. You need the clients to be on Linux, but the server can be on Windows.
--
With best regards,
Pavel Lyalyakin
VisualSVN Team