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# 2 Getting Started

The first step to using Perforce is to obtain an account on the server. If you already have a `FreeBSD.org` account, log into `freefall`, run the following command, and enter a password that is not the same as your FreeBSD login or any other SSH passphrase:

    % /usr/local/bin/p4newuser

Of course if you do not have a `FreeBSD.org` account, you will need to coordinate with your sponsor.

> Warning: An email will be sent to your FreeBSD address that contains the password you specified above in cleartext. Be sure to change the password once your Perforce account has been created!

The next step is to set the environment variables that `p4` needs, and verify that it can connect to the server. The `P4PORT` variable is required to be set for all operations, and specifies the appropriate Perforce server to talk to. For the FreeBSD project, set it like so:

    % export P4PORT=perforce.freebsd.org:1666

> Note: Users with shell access on the `FreeBSD.org` cluster may wish to tunnel the Perforce client-server protocol via an SSH tunnel, in which case the above string should be set to `localhost`.

The FreeBSD server also requires that the `P4USER` and `P4PASSWD` variables be set. Use the username and password from above, like so:

    % export P4USER=username
    % export P4PASSWD=password

Test that this works by running the following command:

    % p4 info

This should return a list of information about the server. If it does not, check that you have the `P4PORT` variable set correctly.

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