Start up a shared server

Download into your computer’s /usr/local/bin directory the server (p4d) and client (p4) binaries, as described in Installation. Then, follow these steps:

  1. Make the server and client binaries executable, if they’re not already

    $ chmod +x /usr/local/bin/p4d
    $ chmod +x /usr/local/bin/p4
  2. Make a subdirectory in which to start up the server and client.

    When started, the server creates a large number of database files. It’s best not to clutter your working directory with these files, so we will start up the server and client in a different directory. Create a directory:

    $ mkdir /Users/bruno/server
  3. Start up the shared server, using the -r dir option to specify the directory created in the previous step.

    $ p4d -r /Users/bruno/server

This produces the following output:

Perforce db files in 'server' will be created if missing...
Perforce Server starting...