Accounts, security and licensing

Install the Perforce tools

Perforce's client software is not part of the platform. Install it on your own machine from Perforce's download pages; the tools are free, and any current version works with a hosted server.

P4V and P4Admin are all most teams need, and the rest of this page uses them. The command line is covered at the end, under Use the command line.

Connect with P4V

You need three things, all of them in the Perforce is ready email: the server address, the fingerprint, and the temporary password for the administrator account you named when you created the server (sam in this guide). The address and fingerprint are also on the Project source control card; see Your connection details.

Open P4V and choose Connection → Open Connection. Enter:

Press OK. P4V shows the server's certificate fingerprint and asks whether to trust it: compare it, character for character, with the Fingerprint row on your connection card or in the email, then press Connect. If it does not match, stop: you are not talking to your server.

Enter the temporary password from the email. The server requires your administrator account to replace it at first sign-in, so P4V opens a dialog reading Your password has expired, please change your password. It asks for the old password, the new one twice, and reminds you of the policy: at least eight characters with a mix of upper and lower case, digits or punctuation. A wrong old password shows Password invalid. and asks again. Once you are in, delete the email.

With the connection open, create a workspace from Connection → New Workspace. P4V proposes a name built from your user, machine and port, a root folder under your home directory, and one mapping that covers the whole depot; accept them or narrow the mapping to the paths you work on. Switch to new workspace immediately is ticked by default, so the Depot tab is ready to sync as soon as you press OK.

• P4V's Swarm integration finds your Swarm server automatically; the platform publishes its address on the server for that purpose.
• P4Admin connects with the same three values. Use it to add people and set groups and permissions; see Add your team in P4Admin.

For the tools themselves, Perforce's own documentation is the reference; this guide covers only what is specific to a hosted server.

Add your team in P4Admin

You add people in P4Admin, signed in as your administrator account. There is no people list in the app yet: the People panel on the hosting page counts the accounts on your server and, on the Team plan, changes how many seats you pay for.

1. Open P4Admin and connect

   Start P4Admin (it is installed with P4V), choose Connection → Open Connection, and enter the server address and your administrator username, then the password you chose when you first connected. P4Admin opens on its Home tab; the Users & Groups tab lists every account on the server. On a new server that is your administrator and dsl_admin, our operator account.

   

2. Create the account

   Open the Users & Groups tab and press the New user toolbar button (or Administration → New User…). Fill in the user name, email, full name and an initial password, leave Type as standard, and press OK.

   

3. Hand over the details

   Give the person the server address, the fingerprint, their username and the initial password. They connect P4V with their own username, are asked to choose a new password, create a workspace and can submit straight away: every account on a new server can read and write the whole depot until you decide otherwise. When you want finer control, set it on P4Admin's Permissions tab, where the table starts with that default line, write user * //..., followed by super for your administrator and for our accounts.

   

Perforce's documentation covers the spec formats and the protections table. Two things are specific to a hosted server: do not remove or demote the platform accounts listed below, and remember that every standard user you create is one of your plan's people.

Accounts on your server

On a server you migrated in, your existing users, their passwords and your own administrator come across unchanged; sign in with the account you already use. dsl_admin is added to your protections table as our operator account rather than replacing anything. Your existing people count towards the plan limit; see Bring an existing server across.

Security defaults

Licensing

Licensing follows the plan. On the Free plan the server runs on Perforce's built-in unlicensed limits (5 users and 20 workspaces once a depot holds 1,000 files or more), and the seat guard keeps you inside them. On the Team plan the platform installs a licence sized to the seats you bought. Plans, seats and prices are on Plans, people and billing. Two facts matter for backups:

• Your licence never leaves the server. Backups and exports exclude the Perforce licence file. A server you restore from a backup runs unlicensed until a licence is installed into its P4ROOT, and unlicensed Perforce allows five users and twenty workspaces. See Restore from a backup.
• Standard users are people. Every standard user on the server, including one you create for a build machine of your own, counts against the plan. Operator and service accounts do not.

P4Admin's Home tab shows the licence state at a glance: an unlicensed (Free plan) server announces its limits under Alerts!, and the Security Level panel highlights the level your server runs at, which is 4 on a hosted server as described under Security defaults.

Helix Swarm (Team plan)

Helix Swarm, Perforce's code-review tool, is part of the Team plan (which the app labels Paid). Its address is on the connection card as Swarm Server and follows a fixed pattern: your server label with -swarm appended. Nothing answers at that address until you turn code review on.

On the hosting page, the Code review (Swarm) card (Review, comment on and approve changes before they ship.) has a switch on the Team plan. Turn it on and the card reads Setting up… this takes a few minutes., then Preparing your Swarm server…, and finally shows an Open Swarm link. Turning the switch off asks Remove code review? (Removing Swarm deletes the code-review server and its history of reviews. Your Perforce depots and submitted changes are not affected.) with Keep Swarm and Remove Swarm buttons. On the Free plan the same card carries a Paid plan badge and the sentence Code review is part of the paid plan. instead of a switch.

Your first visit to the Swarm address can open on a page reading Your Perforce session has expired with a Log in again button; press it to reach the login page.

https://p4-swarm.starfall.northwind.example.com

• Swarm requires sign-in. Use your Perforce username and password; there are no separate Swarm accounts. Your administrator account can administer Swarm as well as review.
• Swarm connects to Perforce through the shared dsl_bot account, which is created when you turn code review or Build on check-in on and removed when both are off.
• Reviews, comments and Swarm projects are stored inside Perforce, so they are included in your backups.
• During a migration, Swarm is deliberately offline until you finalize. See Bring an existing server across.

Use the command line (optional)

Everything above can also be done from a terminal with the p4 command line: useful for scripts, build machines and anyone who prefers it. Nothing here is required if you use P4V and P4Admin.

1. Point the client at your server

   macOS / LinuxWindows

   macOS / LinuxCopy

   $ export P4PORT=ssl:p4.starfall.northwind.example.com:1031
   $ export P4USER=sam
   

   The ssl: prefix is required. Hosted servers have no plaintext port; a connection without ssl: is refused.

2. Trust the certificate, by checking the fingerprint

   Copy

   $ p4 trust
   

   p4 trust prints the fingerprint the server presented and asks whether to trust it. Compare it, character for character, with the Fingerprint row on the connection card:

   Expected fingerprint

   AB:12:6D:4F:90:C3:E8:71:2A:55:BD:04:7E:39:F1:C8:6B:2D:A0:14
   

   If they match, answer yes. For scripts and build machines, pass the fingerprint you expect instead of answering a prompt:

   Copy

   $ p4 trust -i AB:12:6D:4F:90:C3:E8:71:2A:55:BD:04:7E:39:F1:C8:6B:2D:A0:14
   

3. Sign in and choose your own password

   Copy

   $ p4 login
   

   Enter the temporary password from the email. The server requires your administrator account to replace it at first sign-in; when Perforce tells you the password must be changed, set a new one:

   Copy

   $ p4 passwd
   

   The server runs at Perforce security level 4, so the new password must be strong: at least eight characters using a mix of character classes (for example upper and lower case plus digits or punctuation). Then sign in again and confirm:

   Copy

   $ p4 login
   $ p4 info
   

   Now delete the email.

Add a user from the command line

Signed in as your administrator account, run this once per teammate, replacing NAME:

$ p4 -p ssl:p4.starfall.northwind.example.com:1031 -u sam login
$ p4 -p ssl:p4.starfall.northwind.example.com:1031 -u sam user -f -o NAME | p4 -p ssl:p4.starfall.northwind.example.com:1031 -u sam user -f -i
$ p4 -p ssl:p4.starfall.northwind.example.com:1031 -u sam passwd NAME

The second line creates the user with Perforce's defaults; edit the spec first (p4 user -f NAME) if you want to set the full name and email. The third line sets the initial password, which the person changes at their first sign-in.