Perforce Server (p4d) Reference

p4d [ options ]
p4d.exe [ options ]
p4s.exe [ options ]
p4d -j? [ -z ] [ args ... ]

The first three forms of the command invoke the Perforce background process ("Perforce server"). The fourth form of the command is used for system administration tasks involving checkpointing and journaling.

On Windows, the executable is p4d.exe (running as a server) or p4s.exe (running as a service).

After successful startup, p4d does not normally exit. It merely outputs the following startup message :

Also, if invoked with any of the -j checkpointing or journaling flags, p4d exits with a nonzero error code if any error occurs.

If you attempt to use Zeroconf and mDNS (multicast DNS) is not available, only the service registration fails. The error is logged in the server log, and the server continues with startup.

Flag	Meaning
-0	Register the server as a zero-configuration (Zeroconf) service. Overrides P4ZEROCONF setting.
-d	Run as a daemon (in the background)
-f	Run as a single-threaded (non-forking) process
-i	Run from inetd on UNIX
-q	Run quietly (no startup messages)
-s	Run p4d.exe as an NT service (equivalent to running p4s.exe).
-xi	Irreversibly reconfigure the Perforce server (and its metadata) to operate in Unicode mode. Do not use this flag unless you know you require Unicode mode. See the Release Notes and Internationalization Notes for details.
-xu	Run database upgrades and exit.
-c command	Lock database tables, run command, unlock the tables, and exit.
-jc [ prefix ]	Journal-create; checkpoint and save/truncate journal.
-jd file	Journal-checkpoint; create checkpoint without saving/truncating journal.
-jj [ prefix ]	Journal-only; save and truncate journal without checkpointing.
-jr file	Journal-restore; restore metadata from a checkpoint and/or journal file.
-jrc file	Journal-restore with integrity-checking. Because this option locks the database, this option is intended only for use by replica servers started with the p4 replicate command.
-b bunch -jr file	Read bunch lines of journal records, sorting and removing duplicates before updating the database. The default is 5000, but can be set to 1 to force serial processing. This combination of flags is intended for use with by replica servers started with the p4 replicate command.
-f -jr file	Ignore failures to delete records; this meaning of -f applies only when -jr is present. This combination of flags is intended for use with by replica servers started with the p4 replicate command.
-z	Compress (in gzip format) checkpoints and journals.
-h, -?	Print help message.
-V	Print server version.
-A auditlog	Specify an audit log file. Overrides P4AUDIT setting. Default is null.
-Id description	A service description (optional) that will be advertised as a zero-configuration (Zeroconf) service. Use with -0. Overrides P4DESCRIPTION setting.
-In name	A service name (required) that will be advertised as a zero-configuration (Zeroconf) service. Use with -0. Overrides P4NAME setting.
-J journal	Specify a journal file. Overrides P4JOURNAL setting. Default is journal.
-L log	Specify a log file. Overrides P4LOG setting. Default is stderr.
-p port	Specify a port to listen to. Overrides P4PORT. Default 1666.
-r root	Specify the server root directory. Overrides P4ROOT. Default is current working directory.
-v subsystem=level	Set server trace flags. Overrides value P4DEBUG setting. Default is null.

Flag

Meaning

-0

-d

Run as a daemon (in the background)

-f

Run as a single-threaded (non-forking) process

-i

Run from inetd on UNIX

-q

Run quietly (no startup messages)

-s

Run p4d.exe as an NT service (equivalent to running p4s.exe).

-xi

Irreversibly reconfigure the Perforce server (and its metadata) to operate in Unicode mode. Do not use this flag unless you know you require Unicode mode. See the Release Notes and Internationalization Notes for details.

-xu

Run database upgrades and exit.

-c command

Lock database tables, run command, unlock the tables, and exit.

-jc [ prefix ]

Journal-create; checkpoint and save/truncate journal.

-jd file 

Journal-checkpoint; create checkpoint without saving/truncating journal.

-jj [ prefix ]

Journal-only; save and truncate journal without checkpointing.

-jr file

Journal-restore; restore metadata from a checkpoint and/or journal file.

-jrc file

Journal-restore with integrity-checking. Because this option locks the database, this option is intended only for use by replica servers started with the p4 replicate command.

-b bunch -jr file

Read bunch lines of journal records, sorting and removing duplicates before updating the database. The default is 5000, but can be set to 1 to force serial processing. This combination of flags is intended for use with by replica servers started with the p4 replicate command.

-f -jr file

Ignore failures to delete records; this meaning of -f applies only when -jr is present. This combination of flags is intended for use with by replica servers started with the p4 replicate command.

-z

Compress (in gzip format) checkpoints and journals.

-h, -?

Print help message.

-V

Print server version.

-A auditlog

Specify an audit log file. Overrides P4AUDIT setting. Default is null.

-Id description

A service description (optional) that will be advertised as a zero-configuration (Zeroconf) service. Use with -0. Overrides P4DESCRIPTION setting.

-In name

A service name (required) that will be advertised as a zero-configuration (Zeroconf) service. Use with -0. Overrides P4NAME setting.

-J journal

Specify a journal file. Overrides P4JOURNAL setting. Default is journal.

-L log

Specify a log file. Overrides P4LOG setting. Default is stderr.

-p port

Specify a port to listen to. Overrides P4PORT. Default 1666.

-r root

Specify the server root directory. Overrides P4ROOT. Default is current working directory.

-v subsystem=level

Set server trace flags. Overrides value P4DEBUG setting. Default is null.

•	On all systems, journaling is enabled by default. If P4JOURNAL is unset when a server starts, the default location for the journal is $P4ROOT/journal. If you want to manually disable journaling, you must explicitly set P4JOURNAL to off.

•	Take checkpoints and truncate the journal often, preferably as part of your nightly backup process.

•	Checkpointing and journaling preserve only your Perforce metadata (data about your stored files). The stored files themselves (the files containing your source code) reside under P4ROOT and must be also be backed up as part of your regular backup procedure.

•	If your users are using triggers, don't use the -f (non-forking mode) flag; the Perforce server needs to be able to spawn copies of itself ("fork") in order to run trigger scripts.

•	After a hardware failure, the flags required for restoring your metadata from your checkpoint and journal files can vary, depending on whether data was corrupted.

•

Because restorations from backups involving loss of files under P4ROOT often require the journal file, we strongly recommend that the journal file reside on a separate filesystem from P4ROOT. This way, in the event of corruption of the filesystem containing P4ROOT, the journal is likely to remain accessible.

•	The database upgrade flag (-xu) can require considerable disk space. See the Release Notes for details when upgrading.

•	Zeroconf service registration requires support for mDNS (multicast DNS) and DNS-SD (DNS-based service discovery) on the server machine, such as Bonjour (for OS X), Bonjour for Windows (for Windows), or Avahi (for Linux or UNIX).

To start the server, listening to port 1999, with journaling enabled and written to journalfile.	p4d -d -p 1999 -J /opt/p4d/journalfile
To checkpoint a server with a non-default journal file, the -J argument (or the environment variable P4JOURNAL) must match the journal file specified when the server was started.	Checkpoint with: p4d -J /p4d/jfile -jc or P4JOURNAL=/p4d/jfile ; export P4JOURNAL p4d -jc
To create a compressed checkpoint from a server with files in directory P4ROOT	p4d -r $P4ROOT -z -jc
To create a compressed checkpoint with a user-specified prefix of "ckp" from a server with files in directory P4ROOT	p4d -r $P4ROOT -z -jc ckp
To restore metadata from a checkpoint named checkpoint.3 for a server with root directory P4ROOT	p4d -r $P4ROOT -jr checkpoint.3
To restore metadata from a compressed checkpoint named checkpoint.3.gz for a server with root directory P4ROOT	p4d -r $P4ROOT -z -jr checkpoint.3.gz
To advertise availability as a zero-configuration service	p4d -0 -In "Artists\' storage" -Id "Use this server for art assets"

To start the server, listening to port 1999, with journaling enabled and written to journalfile.

p4d -d -p 1999 -J /opt/p4d/journalfile

To checkpoint a server with a non-default journal file, the -J argument (or the environment variable P4JOURNAL) must match the journal file specified when the server was started.

Checkpoint with:

p4d -J /p4d/jfile -jc

P4JOURNAL=/p4d/jfile ; export P4JOURNAL
p4d -jc

To create a compressed checkpoint from a server with files in directory P4ROOT

p4d -r $P4ROOT -z -jc

To create a compressed checkpoint with a user-specified prefix of "ckp" from a server with files in directory P4ROOT

p4d -r $P4ROOT -z -jc ckp

To restore metadata from a checkpoint named checkpoint.3 for a server with root directory P4ROOT

p4d -r $P4ROOT -jr checkpoint.3 

To restore metadata from a compressed checkpoint named checkpoint.3.gz for a server with root directory P4ROOT

p4d -r $P4ROOT -z -jr checkpoint.3.gz

To advertise availability as a zero-configuration service

p4d -0 -In "Artists\' storage" -Id "Use this server for art assets"