Applies to: VisualSVN Server 3.0 and later
Symptoms
When you use the Multisite Repository Replication feature, you may receive the following error message when using the Subversion command line tools such as svnlook.exe or svnadmin.exe to access a VDFS repository:
This includes running the command line tools in the command prompt, scripts and hooks. When the error is produced by a hook script, it may be received on the client side.
Cause
The command line tools that produce the error E160033: Unknown FS type 'vdfs' do not support direct access to the VDFS repositories via the file:// protocol.
VDFS is an advanced filesystem type provided by VisualSVN Server that transparently implements bidirectional data replication. The tools have to be compatible with VDFS in order to access the VDFS repositories on disk.
Resolution
You should run the tools that are packaged with VisualSVN Server. These tools (svn.exe, svnadmin.exe and other) reside in the %VISUALSVN_SERVER%bin\ directory and can be invoked from there or by including this folder to your %PATH% environment variable.
Please note that running the packaged tools is only required when you are directly accessing the repository on the disk (with repository management tools such as svnadmin.exe) or via the file:// protocol. If you are accessing the repository via the http:// protocol, you may use any available Subversion client.
See also
KB13: Using Subversion command-line tools with VisualSVN Server
KB80: Repository types available in VisualSVN Server
KB135: Understanding the Subversion repository types and formats