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P4 Server Administration Documentation | 2026.1

# Installation

p4dctl is installed as part of the UNIX package installation. The installation process automatically creates a master configuration file located at `/etc/perforce/p4dctl.conf`.

As part of the package install, `p4dctl` is installed as a `setuid` root executable because it uses root privileges to maintain process identifier (pid) files for compatibility with systems that use them. For all other operations, `p4dctl` runs with the privileges of the executing user. This allows non-root users to start and stop the services they own while having the pid file remain up to date.

If privileges, ownership, or configuration is incorrect, the user will see:

    p4dctl error:
    'master' p4d: '/opt/perforce/sbin/p4d -p 1666' exited with status 255.

which is also recorded in the log.

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