Barron Kane

<snipped by me>

I've used Perforce to manage my Unreal Engine projects for some time now. In the type definitions file, I can write something like this: binary+wS5 //....exe This will tell perforce on the serverside to only keep 5 revisions of a particular filetype (the '+w' makes that filetype always writable, the '+S5' dictates number of revisions stored). Whenever a new revision is pushed the oldest now 6th file is deleted. Those of us that only deal with art I exclude all extraneous files like source files and intermediates and push only executables and assets to their branch. They have several revisions available if something breaks. If I wasn't able to dictate a revision restriction the repository would grow out of proportion (with a single WORKING copy taking up 300GB there would have been, eventually, Terabytes of binary files stored on the server). I'm trying out plastic atm as perforce is quite unweildy at times and I love the suite thus far, but not being able to dictate revisions will likely keep me on perforce for the time being. It's the same reason svn is an absolute no-go for me, as well as Hg. Plastic seems like the perfect solution for small teams and inordinately large repository sizes (as games tend to be), but this feature is important to me. Storage really can be expensive for small teams and lone developers (and there's no way I'm investing in crazy cloud storage when I have my own nas) so having the tools to optimize my storage is essential.

Thanks for the input, I've tried so many different things. I've wrestled with the server software since I've started for several different things. I only tried also installing the cloud edition because I thought a premise server was provided with the cloud edition but I was wrong and have grabbed a month of team, and started once again from a fresh linux install (5th attempt). Leaving everything default, installing 'plasticscm-server-complete' (this is a headless vm), and not touching anything except going straight into the web admin seems to work. Unfortunately, after running the clserverconfig program, I get a permissions error for the db.conf file. I tried a few different things, but my temporary solution is applying a 777 permissions blanket over the directory (chowning to the plasticscm user did not fix the issue prior). This is very bad practice but at the very least I can now demo plastic scm. I was successfully able to create the repository and begin using it (I still have my other perforce server in case plastic doesn't work out, but I really want to give this a solid attempt). Other than the security implications, everything else seems to be working.

Thanks for the reply! The good news is that I am able to install from the base repo with no issues. The bad news is that it crashes upon startup. Packages installed: plasticscm-complete plasticscm-cloud Error: Starting the Plastic SCM server: Unhandled Exception: System.SystemException: Thread creation failed. at System.Threading.Thread.StartInternal (System.Security.Principal.IPrincipal principal, System.Threading.StackCrawlMark& stackMark) [0x00035] in <8f2c484307284b51944a1a13a14c0266>:0 at System.Threading.Thread.Start (System.Threading.StackCrawlMark& stackMark) [0x0002d] in <8f2c484307284b51944a1a13a14c0266>:0 at System.Threading.Thread.Start () [0x00002] in <8f2c484307284b51944a1a13a14c0266>:0 at Codice.CM.Server.ActivityScheduler.g () [0x0003d] in <c1139098b7c748a69572c506bd8366c3>:0 at Codice.CM.Server.SystemRunner.a (System.Object A_0) [0x00017] in <c1139098b7c748a69572c506bd8366c3>:0 at System.Threading.QueueUserWorkItemCallback.WaitCallback_Context (System.Object state) [0x0000e] in <8f2c484307284b51944a1a13a14c0266>:0 at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.RunInternal (System.Threading.ExecutionContext executionContext, System.Threading.ContextCallback callback, System.Object state, System.Boolean preserveSyncCtx) [0x0008d] in <8f2c484307284b51944a1a13a14c0266>:0 at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run (System.Threading.ExecutionContext executionContext, System.Threading.ContextCallback callback, System.Object state, System.Boolean preserveSyncCtx) [0x00000] in <8f2c484307284b51944a1a13a14c0266>:0 at System.Threading.QueueUserWorkItemCallback.System.Threading.IThreadPoolWorkItem.ExecuteWorkItem () [0x0002a] in <8f2c484307284b51944a1a13a14c0266>:0 at System.Threading.ThreadPoolWorkQueue.Dispatch () [0x00096] in <8f2c484307284b51944a1a13a14c0266>:0 at System.Threading._ThreadPoolWaitCallback.PerformWaitCallback () [0x00000] in <8f2c484307284b51944a1a13a14c0266>:0 Unable to start the Plastic SCM server. Refer to server log (plastic.FAILED.log.txt) for further details. The file (plastic.FAILED.log.txt) doesn't exist on my system. If I uninstall cloud and just run the server it works, but the admin panel configuration page shows this: (image attached) I'm at a loss of what to do at this point.

OS: Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS Kernel: 4.15.0 The normal plasticscm repository works normally, but the labs repository returns this: W: GPG error: https://www.plasticscm.com/plasticrepo/labs/ubuntu ./ Release: The following signatures were invalid: EXPKEYSIG DB77511526C083C6 labs OBS Project <labs@obs-api-v2.codicefactory.com> E: The repository 'https://www.plasticscm.com/plasticrepo/labs/ubuntu ./ Release' is not signed. N: Updating from such a repository can't be done securely, and is therefore disabled by default. I force-trusted the repo, but it still complains that the signature is invalid. An apt-key list wrought: pub rsa2048 2018-01-08 [SC] [expired: 2020-03-18] 6408 080D 19B3 E5F5 AA6F B17B DB77 5115 26C0 83C6 uid [ expired] labs OBS Project <labs@obs-api-v2.codicefactory.com> Looks like it expired last month. Furthermore upon searching the repo for versions, only 7.0.16.2031 shows up when the website lists 9.x as current? Is this intentional? Any and all help is appreciated. Note: I'm trying to install the Labs version because the base version breaks on my box with a 'thread creation failed' error. I want to try labs before I dig into what's causing that.

Thanks for the link! I’ll take a look at the post. I use Git for code, and I’ve used Perforce/svn/etc before on binary rich Projects so terminology does get mixed up but I understand the core principles on centralized and hybrid scm suites. edit: I also want to state the perforce is my pick right now because I can do something like this: binary+w3 //depot/....exe Being able to put just this in the typemap to keep only 3 revisions of a file type is very handy and simple in perforce. On a 4th revision the oldest is automatically deleted.

Thanks for the quick replay Francisco! One more question came up that SVN fell steeply short on. Can you tell Plastic to only keep a certain number of revisions for a particular filetype? As an extension to this, can you version all of a specific filetype to keep them together? In P4, I'm able to do this for executable files and their DLLs so someone that works only with art doesn't have to build the entire project. Since executables don't need to be infinitely versioned I only need the last 3 or so and the oldest one gets deleted upon a commit. Thanks again for the information! This eased my primary concerns.

I'm having trouble discerning some of the feature differences in the editions of Plastic SCM and was wondering if someone could enlighten me. I have a project built in Unreal Engine that's hosted on a custom linux NAS through perforce (free for =<5 users) and honestly P4 is bulky and unwieldy and I've been looking around for alternatives. The primary reason I'm looking at Plastic is git integration as I love using it for coding (git integration not reasonably available on P4), but my friends that only deal with art and assets only interact with P4. The locking mechanism is really the cream of the crop for any SCM I use so as not to touch files that are currently being worked on. Plastic SCM mentions file locking only in conjuction with Gluon, which is under a subscription only. All that said my questions: 1. Is file locking available outside of gluon in the primary interface? 2. Am I able to host my own local server (or even on AWS where our backups are) with only the cloud edition? 3. Do I have to use the cloud server if a subscription is needed? Point 3 is important because I have zero need for a cloud server as I prefer to host everything myself and our total repository size is >300GB on working copy. This seems like a weird scenario to have an extremely small team hosting an inordinately large file base. I don't mind purchasing a subscription, but I'm just feeling out options. Any and all help is greatly appreciated!