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Documentation | 2025.5

# Install and upgrade P4 Code Review

This chapter covers the initial installation and configuration of P4 Code Review as well as upgrading an existing P4 Code Review installation.

## Important restrictions

Do not prefix group names, project names, user names, or client-names with "swarm-", this is a reserved term used by P4 Code Review. Prefixing a name with "swarm-" will result in unexpected and unwanted behavior in P4 Code Review.

For example:

Prefixing a group name with "swarm-project-" will result in, but is not limited to, the following issues:

- P4 Code Review notifications will not be processed correctly for the group.
- The group will not be visible in P4 Code Review.

## Review the runtime dependencies

First, review the runtime dependencies before you install P4 Code Review, see Runtime dependencies.

## P4 Code Review and P4 Server installation considerations

Before installing P4 Code Review and P4 Server you should consider the following:

- To ensure that all characters, including Unicode characters, are displayed and handled correctly by P4 Code Review, configure your P4 Server in Unicode mode. For information on configuring your P4 Server in Unicode mode, see Set up and manage Unicode installations in the P4 Server Administration Documentation.

- For a small system, you can run P4 Code Review and P4 Server on the same machine.

- For larger systems, we recommend that P4 Code Review and P4 Server are run on separate machines. The machines should be close to each other to maximize network performance.

P4 Code Review needs to know about a number of P4 Server events to operate correctly. To enable this to happen, P4 Server Extensions (recommended) or P4 Server Triggers are installed on the P4 Server machine and they need to talk to P4 Code Review. In either case, performance can be negatively affected if network lag between P4 Code Review and the P4 Server is high.

- The P4 Code Review and P4 Server machines do not need to have the same operating system. For example, P4 Server could be on a Windows server and P4 Code Review could be on a RHEL server.

You cannot install P4 Code Review on a Windows machine.

## Choose the installation process

Once you have reviewed the Runtime dependencies and know that you can satisfy them, there are a number of ways to install P4 Code Review.

We recommend the package installation method to install P4 Code Review whenever possible, see Install and configure P4 Code Review from a package (recommended). Package installs ensure that all of the P4 Code Review dependencies are installed and this is the easiest way to install P4 Code Review. For a list of recommended operating systems for P4 Code Review, see Recommended operating systems.

Choose one of the following installation methods (we recommend the package installation method whenever possible):

- P4 Code Review RPM or Debian packages (recommended):

  1. Follow the steps provided in Install and configure P4 Code Review from a package (recommended).
  2. If you installed P4 Server Extensions in the previous step, skip this step and go to step 3:

     Configure P4 Server for P4 Code Review, see Installing triggers.

  3. Review the post-install configuration options to customize your P4 Code Review installation, see Post-install configuration options.
  4. Validate that P4 Code Review is working correctly before using it in production, see Validate your P4 Code Review installation.

  You are all set to start using P4 Code Review. Enjoy!

  To get started with P4 Code Review, see the Quickstart chapter.

- P4 Code Review Docker container:

  1. Follow the steps provided in Run Swarm using a Docker container.
  2. If you installed P4 Server Extensions in the previous step, skip this step and go to step 3:

     Configure P4 Server for P4 Code Review, see Installing triggers.

  3. Review the post-install configuration options to customize your P4 Code Review installation, see Post-install configuration options.
  4. Validate that P4 Code Review is working correctly before using it in production, see Validate your P4 Code Review installation.

  You are all set to start using P4 Code Review. Enjoy!

  To get started with P4 Code Review, see the Quickstart chapter.

- P4 Code Review.tgz (Tarball):

  1. Follow steps provided in the Install and configure P4 Code Review manually from a Tarball.
  2. Configure Redis, see Redis configuration.
  3. Configure Apache, see Apache configuration.
  4. Configure PHP, see PHP configuration.
  5. Configure P4 Code Review, see P4 Code Review configuration.

  6. Configure the P4 Server to notify P4 Code Review about P4 Server events, see Configuring P4 Server event notification.

  7. Set up a recurring task to spawn workers, see Set up a recurring task to spawn workers.
  8. Review the post-install configuration options to customize your P4 Code Review installation, see Post-install configuration options.
  9. Validate that P4 Code Review is working correctly before using it in production, see Validate your P4 Code Review installation.

  You are all set to start using P4 Code Review. Enjoy!

  To get started with P4 Code Review, see the Quickstart chapter.

## Upgrade P4 Code Review

If you already have a working P4 Code Review installation and you want to upgrade P4 Code Review to a newer release, see Upgrading P4 Code Review.

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