What to do : When your SVN client saves a wrong password -> Make it forget it

Applies to:
Any SVN client using putty to connect to SVN server. For e.g. tortoise SVN

Who is this post for?
This post is for anyone who wants SVN client and server to forget currently configured password

Steps to follow

1. Know your repository URL
   For this you should be using tortoise SVN repo-browser and check out the URL. In my case, it looks like

   svn+ssh://jyotsnas@visharad/svnRepos/travel_broker

   This tells me following

   • linux username being used is jyotsnas
   • the svn server is named as visharad
   • Probably all SVN repositories are located under /var/svnRepos
2. Now that we know the servername, in this case ‘visharad’, open putty. Under saved sessions list, you should find your server name. Refer to following screenshot for the same
   
   
   
   

   visharad in saved sessions of putty

3. Click on Load button so that we can find out more. Putty looks like following when I clicked Load
   
   
   
   

   visharad session loaded in putty

   Looking at this I have more concrete information about server i.e. Host name/IP : 192.168.1.50

4. Let’s move to the SSH->Auth in left tree structure –
   
   
   
   

   visharad ssh auth settings in putty

   This screen tells me a path to a private key file on my machine.

   F:\Jyotsna\SVN sessions\visharad.ppk

   Delete this path from the text box.

5. Go back to sessions in left tree and click on save.

   When you delete this path, putty is going to forget the password to be used. Since tortoise SVN uses putty in turn to connect to server, it will forget it too. And that is it.

Questions you might have

1. Why should I not delete the session instead of the private key file path?
   
   

   In cases like mine, visharad name was given to a machine with IP 192.168.1.50. If I had deleted the session, I would have have to relocate all the SVN repositories already checked out on my machine so that the new URL contains 192.168.1.50 instead of visharad. Not deleting the session saves this hassel of mine and still make tortoise svn not use the remembered password.

2. How can I make tortoise SVN remember a new password?

   Just refer to this link for the instructions

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