When trying to access a SVN repository using the svn+ssh protocol with TortoiseSVN it might happen that the password prompt shows up endless times. One suggested solution is to set up a profile in putty and use a private key for authentication for ssh there. Then in TortoiseSVN the host name just has to be changed to the name of the profile, e.g. svn+ssh://username@puttyProfileName/path/to/repo.

This works well until trying to reuse the stored SVN information of your local working copy in another client, for example your IDE. In my case I am using Eclipse with the Subclipse plug-in and my first approach didn’t work with Subclipse, which meant I couldn’t do any team actions from Eclipse when the projects where checked out using TortoiseSVN. If you are only using either of them it works fine.

The solution is quite simple: Rename the putty profile to the actual hostname and use the regular URL for the repository. That’s it. If you’ve used the putty profile name before just use relocate in TortoiseSVN to change the repository URL. TortoiseSVN will then still use the putty profile with the private key to authenticate. Other clients like Subclipse see it as an actual hostname and are able to use that.