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Various Platform Notes

Miscellaneous OS idiosyncrasies that affect Perforce

SUMMARY

Miscellaneous OS idiosyncrasies that affect Perforce

DETAILS

These notes provide additional information about using Perforce on the following platforms. You can find all past and present versions of the Perforce clients and server on our ftp site. For general product information, see the Perforce home page.

UNIX

Last update: August 12, 2004

To maximize performance, configure the server root ($P4ROOT) to reside on a local disk and not an NFS-mounted volume. The Perforce Server's file-locking semantics work with NFS mounts on Solaris 2.5.1 and later, but are incompatible with BSD and Linux variants. Perforce client workspaces can reside on NFS mounts without problems.

Microsoft Windows

Last update: October 8, 2007

2007 Daylight Saving Time changes

After installation of Microsoft's patch for the 2007 Daylight Saving Time (DST) changes, all date/time queries use the 2007 method of calculating DST. Historical data from years prior to 2007 that refer to the approximately four weeks per year that are now part of DST will now be changed by one hour.

This causes problems for files that match the following conditions:

• Created or modified during the affected weeks in years prior to 2007
• Use the +k filetype modifier
• Use the $Date$ or $DateTime$ RCS keywords

To fix this, run p4 verify -q against your depot to identify BAD! file revisions. Then, check the contents of these revisions and run the p4 verify -v command against only the revisions affected by this problem. This will tell Perforce to recalculate the MD5 checksum values for them. It is possible that some files reported as BAD! by p4 verify -q are reported for other reasons. If you are unsure of why errors are reported for some files, Contact Perforce Technical Support for assistance.

There is no DST patch for Windows Vista. It does not suffer from this problem.

Installation

To install Perforce on Windows computers, use our Windows installer, which correctly manages changes in the environment and can install the server as a Windows service.

Windows version limitations

The Windows 32-bit platform (including Windows 2000 and 32 bit versions of Windows 2003, XP, and Vista) has a 2GB per-process memory utilization limit. On Windows, the Perforce Server runs as a single process, servicing each client request as a thread within that process. For sites with a very large transaction volume, this 2GB limitation can inhibit performance and large operations. The Windows 64-bit platform does not have this memory limitation. The use of a 64-bit version of Windows is preferable for sites that might encounter the 2GB per process limitation of the 32-bit version.

The Perforce Server is not supported on Windows 95 or Windows 98, because these operating systems do not support sufficient file locking.

Windows Vista, by default, will not allow a user to write directly write to 'Program Files'. This write protection can cause problems when a user is restoring a Perforce Server from checkpoint and their P4ROOT is under 'Program Files'. The restoration will not fail, instead the write is silently redirected to the user's virtual store. The problem can be resolved by moving the P4ROOt directory out of 'Program Files', or having an administrator change the permissions on the 'Program Files\Perforce\' directory to allow other users 'write' and 'modify' access.

System limitations

The following Windows limitations affect all Windows programs, including Perforce.

• Unlike UNIX, there is no atomic renaming of files on Windows. Renaming is a two-step process, wherein a file is deleted and then a new file is put in its place. As a result, a file might not exist when being replaced in the archive or synced to a client.
• Windows does not allow deletion of a file that is locked for read. This limitation can cause problems when syncing or submitting files. This problem is indicated by messages like "Cannot unlink file" or "File in use by another process."

In all cases, however, Perforce returns appropriate error messages, and problems can be corrected by re-trying the operation. The errors are not fatal and do not corrupt the Perforce metadata.

Filesystem limitations

Under Windows, Perforce clients and servers are subject to the maximum path length limitations inherent in the underlying version of Windows being used. Maximum path lengths range between 254 and 260 characters. Attempts to use paths longer than the limit will result in errors. Any requested operation using paths >260 will not complete successfully and will often generate a warning of the form:

The system can not find the path specified. 

Some examples of errors you may encounter include these:

• Using the Perforce Proxy server on Windows

WARNING: Proxy could not update its cache.
File is \LongFileName.c
The system cannot find the path specified

• Using P4Win:

Open for write: \.tmp
The system can not find the path specified

There are ways to avoid this issue by making file paths shorter. They include the following:

• Locate your root directory, such as P4ROOT or P4PROOT, towards the top of your Windows directory hierarchy, or in a folder at the drive root.
• Reduce folder and filename lengths
• Reduce the number of levels of folders within your file tree.
• Create a virtual drive for part of a path by using the "subst" command. Use the shorter virtual drive path with Perforce. For example, to substitute "U:" for a long directory name such as:

F:\p4user\ClientName\LongDirectory\Name

subst U: F:\p4user\ClientName\LongDirectory\Name

If you expect to have extremely long paths you may wish to consider using a different operating system to host your Perforce installation.

Filesystem requirements

Do not run the Perforce Windows server on a Novell filesystem, or any filesystem that only supports the 8.3 naming scheme. Perforce database files have long suffixes and under the 8.3 naming these file names are folded. Both NTFS and the NT implementation of the FAT16 DOS filesystem will support long file names. The FAT32 filesystem under Windows 2000 is also supported. It is recommended that a network mounted filesystem not be used for the Perforce server root. While this configuration will work, severe performance degradation can be expected. This performance degredation is due to network latency, disk access, and filesystem locking considerations.

Service Pack requirements

Perforce requires Service Pack 6a when using Windows NT, and Service Pack 3 when using Windows 2000. There are no special requirements for other Windows operating systems.

Special Considerations

Configuring the editor

By default, the Windows client uses notepad as an editor and an internal diff routine. If $SHELL is set, Perforce assumes that you have installed the MKS toolkit, and uses vi as its default editor. To override this default, set the environment variables P4EDITOR and P4DIFF.

Using multiple drives for the client workspace

On Windows, a client workspace can span multiple drives. To enable this feature, specify a client root using the keyword null. Specify the drive letter in each line of the client view. The following is a sample client specification for the client named foocli.

Client: foocli

Owner:  joe

Description:
Created by joe.

Root: null

Options: noallwrite noclobber nocompress crlf unlocked nomodtime normdir

View:
//depot/foo/...	//foocli/c:/projects/proj1/...
//depot/bar/...	//foocli/e:/projects/proj2/...

Syncing files into the root of a Windows network share

Attempts to sync depot files to the root of a Windows network share will fail. For example, in the case of this client specification fragment:

Root: \\system\sharename

View:
//depot/... //client/...

Attempts to sync //depot/file.c will result in an error. The client will try to make the directory "\\". This happens to any file that maps into the root of a share via its UNC path.

There are two workarounds for this:

• Map a network drive and use the drive letter instead of the UNC path
• Create a directory under the share root which is used as the client root and which is guaranteed to exist.

Wildcard expansion

On Windows the Perforce client executable performs wildcard expansion directly (via setargv.obj) rather than relying on the shell. While this works well with both the DOS box (which doesn't do wildcard expansion) and the MKS Korn Shell (which does), it means that to get a * past the Perforce client under the Korn Shell, you must quote it twice (i.e. '"*"'): once to get past the Korn Shell, and once to get past the wildcard expansion in the Perforce client.

Filenames containing tilde (~)

To avoid inadvertently overwriting files when syncing to a Windows computer, do not use the tilde character in filenames. The Windows operating system uses the tilde to represent long filenames, and attempts to expand such filenames when you sync.

Filenames and reserved words

Do not use Windows reserved words as filenames. Examples:

• CON
• PRN
• AUX
• LPTn (where n is 1-9)
• COMn (where n is 1-9)
• NUL

Starting the Perforce Server from the command line

The Perforce server executable on Microsoft Windows (p4d.exe) is a Windows console application. The application does not automatically run as a background process. Unless you are performing tests on your server, starting the Perforce Server as a Windows service is preferable to starting it as a Windows console application. The Perforce Windows installer defaults to installing the Perforce Server as a Windows Service. To start the Perforce Server as a Windows service from an MS-DOS command prompt you can use the following command: net start perforce. The server will read the environment and registry variables at startup time. These settings are discussed in the Perforce System Administrator's Guide. There is also a discussion on Windows specific environment variables in�KB article #36.

For details about running multiple Perforce services on the same Microsoft Windows system, refer to KB article #35.

Lotus Notes

P4V has been known to lock up due to a bug in Lotus Notes when used in conjunction with P4V. IBM has provided a fix, SPR# JGON5SZSK6, in Lotus Notes 6.0.4. For details on this bug, please see the fix list for Lotus Notes on IBM’s website. We recommend the following workarounds:

• Upgrade Lotus Notes to 6.0.4 or higher.
• Run P4V and Lotus Notes as mutually exclusive services.
• # Use P4Win instead of P4V.

HPUX 11.11

Last update: September 2001

Large File Support

The file system on which the P4 depot files (P4ROOT) will reside must have large file support enabled. The HPUX file system administration command for enabling this feature is "fsadm". To see if your file system supports large files, first find the volume using the df command:

% df /source/p4root
/source/p4root  (/dev/vg00/lvol8):  206504044 blocks  18900001 i-nodes

Then use the fsadm command (using the raw device):

% fsadm -F hfs /dev/vg00/rlvol8
        file system                 :        /dev/vg00/rlvol8
        magic number                :                 4324334
        feature bits                :                       3
        file system supports        : largefiles, longfilenames

If the output reads "nolargefiles" instead of "largefiles" you will need to do the following:

• unmount the filesystem
• fsadm -F hfs -o largefiles /dev/vg00/rlvol8
• remount the filesystem

See "man fsadm" for more details.

VMS

Last update: 8/12/2004

System requirements

The Perforce p4 command-line client is available on Alpha OpenVMS 6.1, 7.0 and 7.1 and VAX VMS 5.5. The VMS client works with any Perforce server on UNIX or Windows.

Installation

On VMS, you use logicals where Perforce normally expects environment variable, for example, P4PORT, P4CLIENT, P4USER. Enclose case-sensitive values for logicals in quotes.

To install the p4 client:

1. Download p4.exe to your VMS host.
2. Define a symbol for p4; for example:

   $ p4 :== $device:[directory]p4.exe

   You can put this definition into your login.com so that it takes effect every time you log in.

NOTE: The client program information is displayed unversioned on VMS: 'p4 -V' displays 'P4-VMS' (on other platforms it includes the version number).

Special Considerations

Configuring the editor

By default, the VMS client uses EDIT as an editor. If the logical POSIX$SHELL is set, it is assumed that the user has the Posix environment installed so vi is used instead. To override this default, set the logical EDITOR.

VMS files and file names

• Symbolic links stored in the Perforce depot are treated as small text files on VMS, because VMS does not support symlinks.
• Because VMS forcibly downshifts C program command line arguments, enclose references to mixed-case file names in quotes.
• VMS assumes that a file name without a suffix inherits the suffix of a file name earlier on the command line. To overcome this behavior, Perforce appends a period (.) to ensure a null suffix for all generated local file names, and strips trailing periods from any local file argument.
• Perforce uses the current directory for temporary files on VMS. To use the Perforce client, the current directory must be writable.

AS400

Last update: August 17, 2004

The AS400 version of the Perforce p4 client was built on AS400 V4R4, using the Visual Age C++ compiler. The Perforce Server is not available on this platform. The ASCII/EBCDIC conversion is handled by the iconv() function, using the IBMCCSID00819 EBCDIC codepage.

[General AS400 information]

Installation

The following procedure tells you how to install Perforce on the AS400 using a Windows workstation as an intermediary.

1. Download (as binary) the following AS400 savefile onto your Windows workstation:

   ftp://ftp.perforce.com/pub/perforce/r02.1/bin.as400/p4.zip

   Use an uncompress utility to uncompress the Perfsavf file. The file size is 8532480 bytes.
2. On the AS400, create a library named PERFORCE. In the PERFORCE library, create a save file named PERFSAVE, as follows:

   CRTLIB LIB(PERFORCE)
   CRTSAVF FILE(PERFORCE/PERFSAVF)

3. On the Windows workstation, open a DOS command box and ftp the Perfsavf file (as binary) to the PERFORCE/PERFSAVF savefile on your AS400:

   C:\> ftp as400hostname
   ...
   ftp> binary
   ftp> put p4 PERFORCE/PERFSAVF
   ftp> quit

4. Back on the AS400, verify the contents of the savefile

   DSPSAVF FILE(PERFORCE/PERFSAVF)

   The following objects are listed:

   Object      Type   Attribute  Owner       Size    Data
   PERFORCE   *LIB    PROD       LORI       73728     YES
   P4         *PGM    CPPLE      LORI     4157440     YES
   P4         *CMD               QPGMR       4096     YES
   P4SYNC     *CMD               QPGMR       4096     YES
   QCMDSRC    *FILE   PF         QPGMR      32768     YES
   QREXSRC    *FILE   PF         QPGMR      40960     YES

5. Restore the savefile from the PERFORCE/PERFSAVF into the library PERFORCE (the same library where the PERFSAVF savefile is):

   RSTLIB SAVLIB(PERFORCE) DEV(*SAVF) SAVF(PERFORCE/PERFSAVF)

   (This step attempts to extract the PERFORCE library you created in step 2. The resulting error is harmless.)

6. To make the p4 command available to you, add the PERFORCE library to your library list as follows:

   ADDLIBLE PERFORCE

Now you can run the 'p4' command. The 'p4' CMD file wraps up the arguments and passes them to the 'p4' PGM executable.

Special Considerations

Configuring the editor

The default editor (set by P4EDITOR) is edtf.

OS/2

Last update: December 1999

The Perforce OS/2 command-line client is the p4.exe executable. The Perforce server is not available on this platform.

Special considerations

Configuring the editor

By default, the Perforce editor is vi and the file comparison program is diff (same defaults as UNIX). To override the defaults, set the EDITOR and DIFF variables.

Using multiple drives for the client workspace

On OS/2, a client workspace can span multiple drives. To enable this feature, specify a client root using the keyword null. Specify the drive letter in each line of the client view. The following is a sample client specification for the client named foocli.

Client: foocli

Owner:  joe

Description:
Created by Joe

Root: null

Options: noallwrite noclobber nocompress crlf unlocked nomodtime normdir

View:
//depot/foo/...	//foocli/c:/projects/proj1/...
//depot/bar/...	//foocli/e:/projects/proj2/...

BeOS

Last update: December 1999

The Perforce BeOS client can be used on BeOS DR9 for Macintosh and Power Computing PowerPCs to access a Perforce server on any platform. This version was developed using BeOS DR9 with Freescale CodeWarrior. Run the BeOS p4 client from the shell command line in a terminal window.

Special considerations

Configuring the editor

The default Perforce editor is Edit, the BeOS system GUI editor. To override this default, set the $EDITOR environment variable. Be sure to set your editor for "Multiple Launch", as follows:

1. Invoke IconWorld.
2. Drag the Edit icon onto the IconWorld window.
3. Change the App Info settings.

Perforce file permissions

The Be Box is meant to be used as a single-user machine and the effective user has superuser permission, which can circumvent the read-only permissions that Perforce uses to prevent outside modifications to the files it controls. To determine if files have been changed, use the 'p4 diff' command.

Amiga

Last update: October 31, 2006

The Perforce Amiga client program can be run against any Perforce server on UNIX or Windows. The Perforce Server is not available on this platform.

System requirements

AmigaOS 3.1 using ixemul.library version 47. The library may be available from amiga.sourceforge.net.

Special considerations

Specifying file paths

The Amiga version of p4 uses UNIX path names: an Amiga path in the format "drive:path/path/name" gets converted to and from the UNIX format "/drive/path/path/name". Make sure conversion between Amiga and UNIX path names is enabled in ixemul, and keep this conversion in mind when specifying file paths.

Perforce Cygwin Client

If you have your Perforce depot files stored on Windows and you use the Perforce Cygwin command line client to sync files to a client computer, mount your Cygwin volume in text mode to ensure that Windows line endings (CRLF or \r\n) are preserved. If you mount your Cygwin volume in binary mode, the CR (\r) character is deleted when you sync.

Novell File Server

Last update: December 20, 2006

Do not run the Perforce Server on a Novell file system. The Perforce server creates database files with names that are not 8.3 compliant, and the Novell file system does not support such extended file names. As a result, for example, the files "db.rev," "db.revcx," and "db.review" cannot be distinguished as different files, and are overwritten and corrupted.

Macintosh

Platform specific notes for Macintosh can be found in KB article #71.