This is the process to migrate an SVN repository to a Git repository. Adjust paths to your particular scenario.

Create a Git repository, but do not add anything to it. It must be bare. For example, if on GitHub do NOT add any ignore or readme files.

It is IMPORTANT that you do NOT go through the steps to clone the newly created repository or add anything to it. We are going to import the migrated SVN repository into it.

Now we need the SVN authors in nice Git format – store for safekeeping as it will be used later

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$ cd /path/to/svn/repo
$ svn log --quiet | grep -E "r[0-9]+ \| .+ \|" | awk '{print $3}' | sort | uniq > authors.txt

To cover scenarios ambiguous scenarios add a ‘no author’ with an email of your choosing.

Somewhere safe make a temporary working area

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$ mkdir temp && cd temp

Pre-prep the SVN repository (locally), this has some additional options as an example

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$ cd /somewhere/safe/temp
$ git svn clone https://svn.example.com/svn/path/to/repo -A ~/authors.txt --no-metadata --stdlayout --no-minimize-url --ignore-paths="^branches" --tags="tags/releases" --tags="tags/ci-builds"

Create a bare Git repository

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$ cd /somewhere/safe/temp
# if already in the temp dir you can just use 'baremig.git'
$ git init --bare /somewhere/safe/temp/baremig.git
$ cd temp/baremig.git
$ git symbolic-ref HEAD refs/heads/trunk

Push the pre-prep SVN repository to the newly created baremig.git

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$ cd /somewhere/safe/temp/OHS
$ git remote add bare /somewhere/safe/temp/baremig.git
$ git config remote.bare.push 'refs/remotes/*:refs/heads/*'
$ git push bare

Rename ‘trunk’ to ‘master’

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$ cd /somewhere/safe/temp/baremig.git
$ git branch -m trunk master

Migrate the SVN tags

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$ cd /path/to/temp/new-bare.git
$ git for-each-ref --format='%(refname)' refs/heads/tags | cut -d / -f 4 | while read ref; do git tag "$ref" "refs/heads/tags/$ref"; git branch -D "tags/$ref"; done

Push the bare repository

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$ cd /somewhere/safe/temp/baremig.git
$ git remote add origin ssh://git@github.com/<name>/<repo>.git
$ git push -u origin --all

If the SSH ‘git remote add’ command does not work, try this one

$ git remote add origin git@github.com:<username>/<repo>.git

Push the tags to

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$ git push --tags

Now go check it out. Once verified you can delete the local temp directory you worked from.

Tips, Tricks and Hints

SVN Command Line Error

If using the latest Xcode (version 4.6.2) and command line tools (/usr/bin/svn) with a Subversion version of 1.6.18 and you receive errors trying to check out the SVN repository

• Go to Homebrew and install Subversion – use this svn (/usr/local/svn) instead of /usr/bin/svn – that is make sure /usr/local/bin comes before /usr/bin in your PATH

Git SVN Command Line Error

When running the ‘git svn’ command and it errors out immediately you probably have to update the Perl SVN::Core CPAN module

• It will create ~/.cpan as root which can then chwon -R once done (I think it’s OK to remove it, though, but probably best to wait until everything is completed)

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$ sudo cpan SVN::Core