Preparing to initialize a personal server

This topic is distinct from the Server-to-server use cases mentioned in the Introduction of this Guide.

The typical personal server use case involves using p4 clone from a shared server to creates a user's own personal server. This allows that user to use p4 push and p4 fetch to synchronize changes between the shared server and the personal server.

To fetch from or push to a shared server, the case sensitivity of your personal server must match that of your shared server. When you run p4 init, Helix Server attempts to set the case sensitivity of your personal server to match that of the shared server specified in your current P4PORT setting.

If you know which shared server your personal server will be fetching from and pushing to, run p4 init -p, passing in the address of the shared server. This tells the Helix Core Server to apply the shared server’s case sensitivity and Unicode support settings to your personal server.

If Helix Server can’t discover a shared server, the p4 init command will fail. You must then run this command:

$ p4 init -Cx

where C0 sets the server to case-sensitive and C1 sets it to case-insensitive. Set the option to match the case sensitivity of the shared server with which you’re communicating.

Similarly, in order to fetch from or push to a shared server, the Unicode support of your personal server must match that of the shared server. When you run p4 init, Helix Server attempts to set the Unicode support of your personal server to match that of the shared server specified in your current P4PORT setting. If Helix Server can’t discover a shared server, Unicode support defaults to off. If you later want to turn Unicode support on, run this command:

$ p4d -xi -r /users/username/dvcsdir/.p4root

For more information about p4d, see the Helix Core Server (p4d) Reference in Helix Core Server Administrator Guide.