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P4 Server Administration Documentation | 2026.1

# Run from inetd

Under a normal installation, the Perforce service runs on Linux as a background process that waits for connections from users. To have `p4d` start up only when connections are made to it using `inetd` and `p4d -i`, add the following line to `/etc/inetd.conf`:

    p4dservice stream tcp nowait username /usr/local/bin/p4d p4d -i -r p4droot

and then add the following line to `/etc/services`:

    p4dservice nnnn /tcp

where:

- p4dservice is the service name you choose for this P4 Server
- /usr/local/bin is the directory holding your `p4d` binary
- p4droot is the root directory (`P4DROOT`) to use for this P4 Server (for example, `/usr/local/p4d`)
- username is the UNIX user name to use for running this P4 Server
- nnnn is the port number for this P4 Server to use

The "extra" `p4d` on the `/etc/inetd.conf` line must be present; `inetd` passes this to the OS as `argv[0]`. The first argument, then, is the `-i` flag, which causes `p4d` not to run as a background process, but rather to serve the single client connected to it on stdin/stdout. (This is the convention used for services started by `inetd`.)

This method is an alternative to running `p4d` from a startup script. It can also be useful for providing special services. For example, an organization might have a several test servers running on UNIX, each defined as an `inetd` service with its own port number.

There are caveats with this method:

- inetd can disallow excessive connections, so a script that invokes several thousand `p4` commands, each of which spawns a `p4d` server via `inetd`, might cause `inetd` to temporarily disable the service. Depending on your system, you might need to configure `inetd` to ignore or raise this limit.
- There is no easy way to disable the server because the `p4d` executable is run each time. Disabling the server requires modifying `/etc/inetd.conf` and restarting `inetd`.
- To use P4 Server with this license, you need to request a server license that does not specify a port. Contact Perforce Support.

For information about using `systemd` to launch services and daemons at boot time, see the Perforce Knowledge Base article, Example systemd Perforce Service File.

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