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P4 Server Administration Documentation | 2026.1

# Configure the forwarding replica

The steps on this page assume you have logged into the target server The immediately upstream server for replica servers, edge servers, standby servers, proxies and brokers. See also 'upstream server' and 'central server'. as the P4 user with the access level of `super`. See Permission levels and access rights in the `p4 protect` topic of P4 CLI Reference. That user can have any name, but for convenience the examples use `super`:

$ `p4 -u super login`

1. Create a checkpoint of the target server.

   $ p4 -u super admin checkpoint or $ p4d -jc

   To learn more, see Backup and recovery concepts and Checkpoint files.

2. Copy the checkpoint to the machine that the forwarding replica will run on.

3. Restore from that checkpoint on the machine that the forwarding replica will run on.

   $ p4d -r /replica/root -jr /replica/root checkpoint_file

4. Copy the versioned files from the target server to the forwarding replica.

   On Linux, run:

   $ `scp -r london:/london/depot/ replica:/replica/depot/`

   On Windows, ensure that the `C:` drive is shared appropriately on the replica, then run:

       xcopy /E /I C:\london\depot \\replica\C$\replica\depot

   Versioned files include both text (in RCS format, ending with `,v`) and binary files (directories of individual binary files, each directory ending with `,d`). Ensure that you copy the text files in a manner that correctly translates line endings for the forwarding replica’s filesystem.

   If your depots are specified using absolute paths on the target server, use the same paths on the forwarding replica. (Or use relative paths in the `Map` field for each depot, so that versioned files are stored relative to the server’s root.)

5. Start the P4 server on the forwarding replica using the P4PORT value of forward:1667 and both the -n and -d options:

   $ p4d -r /replica/root -p forward:1667 -n -d

   Ignore the warning about `topologyRegistration`.
   The -n option is necessary until we set the serverid to correspond to a type of server that does not need a license.

6. Set the serverid to fwd-1667 for the forwarding replica:

   $ p4 -u super -p forward:1667 serverid fwd-1667

7. Confirm that the serverid is correctly set at the server address of forward:1667.

   $ p4 -u super -p forward:1667 serverid

   The output should be:

   Server ID: fwd-1667

8. Log in as the service user to the target server using the location of the tickets file specified in the Configure the target server for the forwarding replica:

   1. Make a note of the output file path from `p4 configure show P4TICKETS`

   2. Run `export P4TICKETS=/p4/.p4tickets`

   3. Run `p4 -u service -p london:1666 login`

   4. Using the file and path information you noted at step 8a, run `export P4TICKETS=path-to-.p4tickets`

9. On the forwarding replica, stop the server:

   $ p4 -u super -p forward:1667 admin stop

10. Restart the server on the forwarding replica:

$ p4d -r /replica/root -p forward:1667 -d

11. Confirm that the `p4 pull` commands specified in the `fwd-1667` `startup.N` configurations are running:

    $ p4 -u super -p forward:1667 monitor show -a

    The output should be similar to this:

        18835 R service00:04:46 pull -i 1
        18836 R service00:04:46 pull -u -i 1
        18837 R service00:04:46 pull -u -i 1
        18926 R super 00:00:00 monitor show -a

12. Confirm that the forwarding replica is replicating.

    $ p4 -u super -p forward:1667 pull -l -j

    The output should be in this format, with the replica sequence matching (or being close to) that of the target server (master).

        Current replica journal state is:    Journal 511,    Sequence 29233313
        Current master journal state is:    Journal 511,    Sequence 29233313.
        The  statefile was last modified at:    2019/10/22 15:19:55.
        The replica server time is currently:    2019/10/22 15:19:59 +0100 BST

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