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P4 Server Administration Documentation | 2025.1

# Basic workflow

This book is roughly organized according to the administrator workflow. This section summarizes the basic workflow for setting up, configuring, and managing P4 Server.

1. Set up the environment in which you will install P4 Server.

   Review installation pre-requisites in Plan the installation.

2. Download and install P4 Server.

   See Install P4 Server.

3. Start the server.

   See the appropriate section on starting the server in Install P4 Server.

4. Execute the `p4 protect` command to restrict access to the server.

   See Secure the server.

5. Configure the server.

   Basic configuration includes enabling distributed versioning if needed, defining depots, defining case sensitivity and unicode, managing client requests, configuring logging, and configuring P4V settings. See Configure the server.

6. Define additional depots if needed.

   See Work with depots.

7. Add users if they are not automatically added on login.

   See "standard users" under "Types of users" in the p4 user topic of P4 CLI Reference.

8. Secure the server: set up secure client-server connection. Set up authorization and authentication.

   See Secure the server.

9. Back up the server.

   See Backup and recovery.

10. Monitor server performance and resource use.

    See Monitor the server.

11. Manage the server and its resources: changelists, users, code sharing, disk space, and processes.

    See Manage server resources.

12. Tune the server to improve performance.

    See Performance tuning.

13. Customize P4 Server by extending job definitions.

    See Job specifications: track changelists.

14. Customize P4 Server using trigger scripts.

    See Triggers and extensions.

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