Perforce / Helix Guide for UE4 on a linux server

This guides explain how to set up a Perforce/Helix P4 server to host your UE4 project on it.

This guides uses Ubuntu 18.04.

Prerequisites

You should have your Linux server already set up and be able to connect to it via SSH. Connect as root to your server:

ssh -lroot IPADRESS

Getting started

This guide uses Ubuntu 18.04, but it should work on other Linux distributions as well. We are going to use the Linux package-based installation for this guide. Two distribution packages can be used Debian (.deb) for Ubuntu systems and RPM (.rpm) for CentOS, RedHat and SUSE. Make sure to install the correct package.

Available Perforce packages for Linux (Intel x86_64) platforms are:

Given that list, we are using the “bionic” release.

Installation

  1. Add the Perforce packaging key to your APT keyring

wget -qO - https://package.perforce.com/perforce.pubkey | sudo apt-key add -

Server should respond with “OK”.

  1. Add the Perforce repository to your APT configuration.

To do this, change directory to “/etc/apt/sources.list.d/”:

cd /etc/apt/sources.list.d/

Now create a file named “perforce.list”, e.g. with VIM:

vim perforce.list

and enter the following (press “I” on your keyboard to start writing):

deb http://package.perforce.com/apt/ubuntu bionic release

press ESC to enter comamnd mode and type “:wq” to save and quit. NOTE: We used “bionic” since we are using Ubuntu 18.04. If you are using another version, make sure to replace it with the appropriate distribution (see Getting Started).

  1. Run apt-get update to download the necessary packages. The output should look somewhat like this:
Hit:1 http://asi-fs-n.contabo.net/ubuntu bionic InRelease
Hit:2 http://asi-fs-n.contabo.net/ubuntu bionic-updates InRelease
Hit:3 http://asi-fs-n.contabo.net/ubuntu bionic-backports InRelease
Hit:4 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-security InRelease
Get:5 http://package.perforce.com/apt/ubuntu bionic InRelease [3,411 B]
Get:6 http://package.perforce.com/apt/ubuntu bionic/release amd64 Packages [3,582 B]
  1. Run sudo apt-get install helix-p4d to start the installation. After a successfull installation the output should look like this:
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
::
::  Thank you for choosing Perforce Helix
::  The following has been installed by the 'helix-p4d' package:
::
::  - The Helix Version Engine (p4d)
::  - A 'perforce' system user
::  - p4dctl, a tool for managing Perforce service instances
::  - The Helix Command-Line Client (p4)
::
::  The Helix Version Engine is now installed, but not yet configured.
::  You must run the following to configure p4d (as root):
::
::    sudo /opt/perforce/sbin/configure-helix-p4d.sh
::
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Started 0 services.
No services configured.

Perforce / Helix P4 is now installed. As stated in the output, the service isn’t running yet. Helix needs to be configurated first.

Configuration

  1. Start the configuration in Interactive Mode by running:

sudo /opt/perforce/sbin/configure-helix-p4d.sh

The following options can be configured to ones liking, using the default values is fine, too. At the end of the configuration mode you will be asked to create a user and a password for the super user.

The setup is now complete and a summary of the configuration options will be displayed. You should now be able to connect to your P4 server via P4V.

Connecting & Further Steps

You should now be able to connect to your server via P4V. By default SSL is enabled and (if not chosen otherwise in the configuration step before) the port 1666 is being used. Your server address to connect to will look like this:

ssl:IPADDRESS:1666

After the connection was successfull there are a few things that should be done now:

1) Add a typemap - especially for UE4 projects this is very helpful. 2) Add new users and add them to appropriate groups. Token-based logins are enabled on a group level, not per user.

Reconnecting after deleted server

Unable to connect to the server as user "
Try reconnecting to the server?

If for some recent the Perforce server gets shut down or cannot be reached, P4V will try to always recconect to it upon startup. The only options available are “Close P4V” or “Reconnect”. To be able to bring up P4V and connect to another server, the recent connections list needs to be cleared. To reset the last connection, do the following:

Quit P4V. For Windows 10 navigate to the folder (Linux might differ):

%USERPROFILE%\.p4qt\

Open the file “ApplicationSettings.xml”.

The XML file will have an entry named “RecentConnections”. Either delete the entry that is causing the issue or simply delete all entries. Also delete the entries “LastConnection” and “LastRemoteConnection”.

<StringList varName="RecentConnections">
   <String>IPADDRESS, USERNAME, WORKSPACE</String>
 </StringList>

Deleting the ApplicationSettings.xml does work as well, however, this resets all the settings within P4V. A new ApplicationSettings.xml will be created when starting up P4V.

Expired SSL Certitificate

After 2 years using the Perforce server the SSL certificate might expire. When trying to connect you will receive the error:

Certificate date range invalid.

In that case the SSL certificate needs to be renewed. To do that connect to your server and switch to the Perforce user:

su perforce

Switch to the SSL directory within your Perforce install diretory and remove the certificate.txt and the privatekey.txt files.

cd /opt/perforce/servers/"SERVER_NAME"/root/ssl
rm privatekey.txt
rm certificate.txt

Set P4SSLDIR to the correct directory and generate a new certificate. Make sure to

export P4SSLDIR=/opt/perforce/servers/"SERVER_NAME"/root/ssl
p4d -Gc

Running ls should now show the certificate.txt and the privatekey.txt be created again. Restart the Perforce server and it should work again.

Connection Issue in P4V - reset last connection

Under certain circumstances P4V can get into a state, where it cannot be properly launched anymore. This can happen if P4V tries to open a connection to the last server it was connected to on startup (this is an option you can turn and off). If the server is unreachable, you only have two buttons: “Reconnect” or “Close P4V”. Both of which won’t do you any good. In this scenario, the last connection needs to be reset. To do that, navigate to the folder:

%USERPROFILE%\.p4qt\

Open the file ApplicationSettings.xml. Feel free to create a backup of this file, since we are going to edit it. Find the appropriate instances where the previous server is mentioned. Alternatively the ApplicationSettings.xml can be deleted. It will be created again when starting P4V, but keep in mind that this will reset the Application Settings saved within that file.