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P4 CLI Documentation | 2025.2

# Start a P4 Server (Linux and macOS)

The following steps assume that you have downloaded P4 Server and P4 CLI binaries to your /usr/local/bin directory. See Installation.

1. Make the server and client binaries executable, if they’re not executable 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. Rather than clutter your working directory, it's good practice to start up the server and client in a different directory.

   Create a directory:

       mkdir /Users/<username>/server

   where <username> is your username.

3. Start up the shared server, using the `-r dir` option to specify the directory created in the previous step:

       p4d -r /Users/<username>/server

   where <username> is your username.

   This produces the following output:

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

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