Start a P4 Server (Linux and macOS)

The following steps assume that you have downloaded P4 Server and P4 CLI binaries to your /usr/local/bin directory. See Installation.

Make the server and client binaries executable, if they’re not executable already:
```
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/p4d
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/p4
```
Make a subdirectory in which to start up the server and client.

When started, the server creates a large number of database files. Rather than clutter your working directory, it's good practice to start up the server and client in a different directory.

Create a directory:
```
mkdir /Users/<username>/server
```
where <username> is your username.
Start up the shared server, using the -r dir option to specify the directory created in the previous step:
```
p4d -r /Users/<username>/server
```
where <username> is your username.

This produces the following output:
```
Perforce db files in 'server' will be created if missing...
Perforce Server starting...
```