Fix Mac OS X svn ssl bug: "bad decompression"
Using SVN over SSL has been a real pain on Mac OS X (tested on snow leopard and lion).
The more 'heavy' SVN commands cause "SSL handshake failed: SSL error: bad decompression".
After some research this should be due a bug in the SSL library bundled with Apple's developer tools.
On the CollabNet forums someone suggested switching the standard http library called Neon for a new one called Serf written by some Google developers. This library should be really performant and handles SSL by itself.
Sadly the SVN tools from Apple don't come with the Serf library so we have to download a package which does.
The trick is the configure SVN to use the Serf library instead of the Neon library.
Owkay, so let's fix this step by step!
Step 1: check existing svn
Open up a terminal and check if the Serf library is for some reason already available by using following command:
svn --version
The library is available when you find "*ra_serf" in the list. If so, goto step 4.
Step 2: install svn package
*Snow Leopard
Download a SVN package and install. Remember the location where the svn tools will live. (note: i've used CollabNet but registration is required, others should do fine also I think)
*Lion
At the time of writing this post there seems to be no package available for Lion on CollabNet but you can with MacPorts. After upgrading to Lion, you'll also have to upgrade (sudo port -v selfupdate) or install MacPorts but you'll also need the latest Xcode (>= 4.1). You can install subversion with MacPorts with "sudo port install subversion". Following steps stay the same except the svn tools will live in another directory, for me that's /opt/local/bin.
Step 3: check for serf library
Let's check again if Serf's available. (note: replace path with your own install location)
/opt/subversion/bin/svn --version
As you can see, the Serf library is available!
Step 4: configure svn
Great, now we just have to configure your subversion settings so it will use the Serf library.
open ~/.subversion/servers
Search for the [global] section and add "http-library = serf" and save file.
Step 5: add new svn tools to path
To complete this, we add the freshly installed svn tools to the environment path.
open ~/.profile
And add following:
export PATH=/opt/subversion/bin:$PATH
Again, use the path to which you've installed the tools. Make sure the existing path gets appended so the new svn tools will take precedence over old ones.
Step 6: retry failed svn commands
After this, you should be able to execute svn command without the SSL "bad decompression" error.
If not, check if you really using the new svn tools and make sure they got exported to your environment. (note: initiate new terminal session so path changes take effect)
A good command to diagnose the problem in my case was doing a recursive svn list command.
svn ls -R https://svn.example.com/project/trunk
That's it! Enjoy!
