About This Manual

This book, Perforce Server Administrator's Guide: Multi-Site Deployment (previously titled Distributing Perforce), is a guide intended for administrators responsible for installing, configuring, and maintaining multiple interconnected or replicated Perforce services. Administrators of sites that require only one instance of the Perforce service will likely find the Perforce Server Administrator's Guide: Fundamentals sufficient.

This guide assumes familiarity with the material in the Perforce Server Administrator's Guide: Fundamentals.

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What's new in this guide for the 2014.2 update

This section provides a list of changes to this guide for the Perforce Server 2014.2 update release. For a list of all new functionality and major bug fixes in Perforce Server 2014.2, see the Perforce Server 2014.2 Release Notes.

Changes in the update

Edge servers

We now recommend using edge servers instead of build farm servers. See Configuring a Build Farm Server and “Commit-edge Architecture” for details.

The section Create commit and edge server configurations has been updated to use the correct configuration commands.

Filtered checkpointing

The command demonstrating how to take a filtered checkpoint now uses the correct syntax. See Converting a forwarding replica to an edge server for details.

Major changes

Single sign on for authenticating users

Users must have a ticket for each server they access in a federated environment. The best way to handle this requirement is to set up a single login to the master, which is then valid across all replica instances. This is particularly useful with failover configurations, when you would otherwise have to re-login to the new master server.

See Authenticating users.

Creating filtered checkpoints

You can use the -P serverId option with the p4d command to create a filtered checkpoint based on a serverId.

See Commands and concepts.

Using the broker as a load-balancing router

You can configure the broker to act as a load-balancing router. When you configure a broker to act as a router, Perforce builds a db.routing table that is processed by the router to determine which server an incoming command should be routed to. The routing logic attempts to bind a user to a server where it already has clients. You can modify the routing choice on the p4 command line if you need to.

See Using the Broker as a load-balancing router.

Updates and corrections

Book title and chapter title changes

The title of this guide has changed from Distributing Perforce to Perforce Server Administrator's Guide: Multi-Site Deployment.

The title of the chapter "Distributing Perforce: Concepts" has changed to “Introduction to Federated Services”.

The title of the chapter "Distributed Perforce" has changed to “Commit-edge Architecture”.

Updated and expanded Introduction

See “Introduction to Federated Services” for additional information about Perforce federated services, the server types you use to create this federated deployment, and the use cases that are satisfied using this architecture.

How different replica types handle user requests

See How replica types handle requests for a description of how different replica types handle user requests.

Instructions for configuring a commit-edge deployment starting with a standard server

See Setting up a commit/edge configuration for instructions on setting up commit and edge servers.