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P4 Server Administration Documentation | 2025.2

# Run the P4 Server (p4d) as an unprivileged user

P4 Server does not require privileged access. For security reasons, do not run `p4d` as `root` or otherwise grant the owner of the `p4d` process `root`-level privileges.

Create an unprivileged UNIX user (for example, `perforce`) to manage `p4d` and (optionally) a UNIX group for it (for example, `p4admin`). Use the `umask(1)` command to ensure that the server root (`P4ROOT`) and all files and directories created beneath it are writable only by the UNIX user `perforce`, and (optionally) readable by members of the UNIX group `p4admin`.

Under this configuration, the Perforce service (`p4d`), running as UNIX user `perforce`, can write to files in the server root, but no users are able to read or overwrite its files. To grant access to the files created by `p4d` (that is, the depot files, checkpoints, journals, and so on) to trusted users, you can add the trusted users to the UNIX group `p4admin`.

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