How to use svn+ssh with Tortoise SVN from the command line

For svn+ssh to work with Tortoise, make sure %SVN_SSH% is set to your ssh client (probably plink.exe from Tortoise or Putty) and the path must be written either with forward slashes / or with escaped backslashes \\.

Try to set %SVN_SSH% with the absolute path of plink while escaping the backslashes, something like C:\\Program Files\\TortoiseSVN\\bin\\TortoisePlink.exe instead of ..\TortoisePlink.exe


  • Connect to server, using Plink, by hand. Define needed and correct (for you) startup-options of plink
  • Add this line (use tortoiseplink as windowless-plink) into %APPDATA%config file, [tunnels] section

Check that the path to TortoisePlink is not corrupted in your Tortoise SVN config...

  1. Start > Program Files > Tortoise SVN > Settings
  2. Under General Settings, "Subversion configuration file:" click "Edit"
  3. This will open the config file in Notepad
  4. Scroll down to the [tunnels] section and check the value for ssh which should be uncommented, use double slashes etc - I had problems as there seemed to be a Unicode control code at the beginning of the path.
### On Windows, if you are specifying a full path to a command,
### use a forward slash (/) or a paired backslash (\\) as the
### path separator.  A single backslash will be treated as an
### escape for the following character. 
ssh = C\:\\Program Files\\TortoiseSVN\\bin\\TortoisePlink.exe