Backing up a Repository

(This is a summary of a thread on the mailing list around 2007-08-11. backing up of a Mercurial repository can be done:

• regular cloning - only if you check in regularly

  • you may use mq init -c to also allow backup of your local changes (see MqTutorial)

• copy the filesystem
  • mpm: there is a "potential not serious race" when somebody is pushing at the same time to the repo
  • mpm: There will be a partial commit in progress during the backup. The repo will contain part of the commit and won't pass verify. Doing a pull of the last good revision will repair it.
  • mpm: if the filesystem is able to create snapshots (like zfs) there is no race. take a snapshot, then back it up

As noted on CreateBundleOfAllChanges, a compressed version of a repository may be created by using hg bundle:

$ hg bundle --all project.hg

Of course, such a full bundle file ("project.hg" in our example) of a repository does not contain extra repo-files like "hgrc" (these would need to be backed-up separately).