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P4 Server Administration Documentation | 2026.1

# Replication overview

Replication is the duplication of server data from the target server The immediately upstream server for replica servers, edge servers, standby servers, proxies and brokers. See also 'upstream server' and 'central server'. to the replica A P4 Server that automatically maintains a full or partial copy of the central server's metadata and that might contain related file content. The replica copies by using 'p4 pull' or 'p4 journalcopy'. A replica can be used as a backup server for disaster recovery., ideally in real time. You can use replication to:

- Provide warm standby servers.

  A replica server can function as an up-to-date warm standby system to be used if the target server fails. Such a replica server requires that both server metadata and versioned files are replicated.

- Reduce load and downtime on a primary server.

- Provide support for build farms.

  A replica with a local (non-replicated) storage for client workspaces (and their respective have lists) is capable of running as a build farm.

- Forward write requests to a central server.

  A forwarding replica holds a readable cache of both versioned files and metadata, and forwards commands that write metadata or file content towards a central server. A forwarding replica offers a blend of the functionality of the P4 Proxy with the improved performance of a replica. (See Forwarding replica.)

Combined with an Authorization server, P4 Server administrators can configure the P4 Broker to redirect commands to replica servers to balance load efficiently across an arbitrary number of replica servers. See Authorization server (P4AUTH) and P4 Broker.

The Failover and Failback after failover features involve replication.

## Read and write access to a remote server

Most replica configurations are intended for reading of data. If you require read and write access to a remote server, consider using:

- A forwarding replica. See Forwarding replica.
- A multi-server Perforce service. See Commit-edge overview.
- P4 Proxy. See P4 Proxy.

## Additional information

- Checkpoint files

- Replica server metadata recovery in case a replica server appears to be corrupted

- Perforce Knowledge Base articles:

  - A detailed walk-through of Installing a Helix Replica Server

  - The use case for a journal prefix at Configuring Checkpoint and Rotated Journal location in Distributed Helix Environments
  - A detailed walk-through of Inspecting replication progress
  - Details about how certain commands behave differently on edge servers

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