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Synopsis
Invoke the Perforce server or perform checkpoint/journaling (system administration) tasks.
Syntax
p4d [ options ]
p4d.exe [ options ]
p4s.exe [ options ]
p4d -j [ -z ] [ args ... ]
Description
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.
On UNIX and MacOS X, the executable is p4d.
On Windows, the executable is p4d.exe (running as a server) or p4s.exe (running as a service).
Exit Status
After successful startup, p4d does not normally exit. It merely outputs the startup message
Perforce server starting...
and runs in the background.
On failed startup, p4d returns a nonzero error code.
Also, if invoked with any of the -j checkpointing and/or journalling flags, p4d exits with a nonzero error code if any error occurs.
Options
Flag
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Meaning
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-d
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Run as a daemon (in the background)
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-f
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Run as a single-threaded (non-forking) process
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-i
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Run from inetd on UNIX
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-q
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Run quietly (no startup messages)
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-s
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Run p4d.exe as an NT service (equivalent to running p4s.exe)
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-xu
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Run database upgrades and exit.
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-xi
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Irreversibly reconfigure the Perforce server (and its metadata) to operate in internationalized mode. Do not use this flag unless you know you require internationalized mode. See the Release Notes for details.
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-jc [ prefix ]
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Journal-create; checkpoint and save/truncate journal.
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-jd [ file ]
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Journal-checkpoint; create checkpoint without saving/truncating journal.
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-jj [ prefix ]
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Journal-only; save and truncate journal without checkpointing.
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-jr file
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Journal-restore; restore metadata from a checkpoint and/or journal file.
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-z
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Compress (in gzip format) checkpoints and journals.
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-h, -?
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Print help message.
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-V
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Print server version.
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-J journal
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Specify a journal file. Overrides P4JOURNAL setting. Default is journal.
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-L log
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Specify a log file. Overrides P4LOG setting. Default is stderr.
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-p port
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Specify a port to listen to. Overrides P4PORT. Default 1666.
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-r root
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Specify the server root directory. Overrides P4ROOT. Default is current working directory.
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-v debuglevel
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Set server trace flags. Overrides value P4DEBUG setting. Default is null.
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Usage Notes
- 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 wish 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 may vary, depending on whether or not 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 the filesystem containing P4ROOT, the journal is likely to remain accessible.
- The database upgrade flag (-xu) is may require considerable disk space. See the Release Notes and the section "Important Notes for 2001.1 and later" on page 16 if upgrading to 2001.1 or later from a 2000.2 or earlier server.
Related Commands
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To start the server, listening to port 1999, with journaling enabled and written to journalfile.
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p4d -d -p 1999 -J /opt/p4d/journalfile
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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.
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Checkpoint with:
p4d -J /p4d/jfile -jc
or
P4JOURNAL=/p4d/jfile ; export P4JOURNAL
p4d -jc
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To create a compressed checkpoint from a server with files in directory P4ROOT
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p4d -r $P4ROOT -z -jc
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To create a compressed checkpoint with a user-specified prefix of "ckp" from a server with files in directory P4ROOT
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p4d -r $P4ROOT -z -jc ckp
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To restore metadata from a checkpoint named checkpoint.3 for a server with root directory P4ROOT
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p4d -r $P4ROOT -jr checkpoint.3
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To restore metadata from a compressed checkpoint named checkpoint.3.gz for a server with root directory P4ROOT
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p4d -r $P4ROOT -z -jr checkpoint.3.gz
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