Configuring a Web Server

Warning: You are browsing the documentation for Symfony 2.x, which is no longer maintained.

Read the updated version of this page for Symfony 7.1 (the current stable version).

The preferred way to develop your Symfony application is to use PHP's internal web server. However, when using an older PHP version or when running the application in the production environment, you'll need to use a fully-featured web server. This article describes several ways to use Symfony with Apache or Nginx.

When using Apache, you can configure PHP as an Apache module or with FastCGI using PHP FPM. FastCGI also is the preferred way to use PHP with Nginx.

The Web Directory

The web directory is the home of all of your application's public and static files, including images, stylesheets and JavaScript files. It is also where the front controllers (app.php and app_dev.php) live.

The web directory serves as the document root when configuring your web server. In the examples below, the web/ directory will be the document root. This directory is /var/www/project/web/.

If your hosting provider requires you to change the web/ directory to another location (e.g. public_html/) make sure you override the location of the web/ directory.

Apache with mod_php/PHP-CGI

The minimum configuration to get your application running under Apache is:

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<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName domain.tld
    ServerAlias www.domain.tld

    DocumentRoot /var/www/project/web
    <Directory /var/www/project/web>
        AllowOverride All
        Order Allow,Deny
        Allow from All
    </Directory>

    # uncomment the following lines if you install assets as symlinks
    # or run into problems when compiling LESS/Sass/CoffeeScript assets
    # <Directory /var/www/project>
    #     Options FollowSymlinks
    # </Directory>

    ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/project_error.log
    CustomLog /var/log/apache2/project_access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Tip

If your system supports the APACHE_LOG_DIR variable, you may want to use ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/ instead of hardcoding /var/log/apache2/.

Use the following optimized configuration to disable .htaccess support and increase web server performance:

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<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName domain.tld
    ServerAlias www.domain.tld

    DocumentRoot /var/www/project/web
    <Directory /var/www/project/web>
        AllowOverride None
        Order Allow,Deny
        Allow from All

        FallbackResource /app.php
    </Directory>

    # uncomment the following lines if you install assets as symlinks
    # or run into problems when compiling LESS/Sass/CoffeeScript assets
    # <Directory /var/www/project>
    #     Options FollowSymlinks
    # </Directory>

    # optionally disable the fallback resource for the asset directories
    # which will allow Apache to return a 404 error when files are
    # not found instead of passing the request to Symfony
    <Directory /var/www/project/web/bundles>
        FallbackResource disabled
    </Directory>
    ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/project_error.log
    CustomLog /var/log/apache2/project_access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Tip

If you are using php-cgi, Apache does not pass HTTP basic username and password to PHP by default. To work around this limitation, you should use the following configuration snippet:

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RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]

Using mod_php/PHP-CGI with Apache 2.4

In Apache 2.4, Order Allow,Deny has been replaced by Require all granted. Hence, you need to modify your Directory permission settings as follows:

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<Directory /var/www/project/web>
    Require all granted
    # ...
</Directory>

For advanced Apache configuration options, read the official Apache documentation.

Apache with PHP-FPM

To make use of PHP-FPM with Apache, you first have to ensure that you have the FastCGI process manager php-fpm binary and Apache's FastCGI module installed (for example, on a Debian based system you have to install the libapache2-mod-fastcgi and php7.1-fpm packages).

PHP-FPM uses so-called pools to handle incoming FastCGI requests. You can configure an arbitrary number of pools in the FPM configuration. In a pool you configure either a TCP socket (IP and port) or a Unix domain socket to listen on. Each pool can also be run under a different UID and GID:

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; a pool called www
[www]
user = www-data
group = www-data

; use a unix domain socket
listen = /var/run/php/php7.1-fpm.sock

; or listen on a TCP socket
listen = 127.0.0.1:9000

Using mod_proxy_fcgi with Apache 2.4

If you are running Apache 2.4, you can easily use mod_proxy_fcgi to pass incoming requests to PHP-FPM. Configure PHP-FPM to listen on a TCP or Unix socket, enable mod_proxy and mod_proxy_fcgi in your Apache configuration, and use the SetHandler directive to pass requests for PHP files to PHP FPM:

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<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName domain.tld
    ServerAlias www.domain.tld

    # Uncomment the following line to force Apache to pass the Authorization
    # header to PHP: required for "basic_auth" under PHP-FPM and FastCGI
    #
    # SetEnvIfNoCase ^Authorization$ "(.+)" HTTP_AUTHORIZATION=$1

    # For Apache 2.4.9 or higher
    # Using SetHandler avoids issues with using ProxyPassMatch in combination
    # with mod_rewrite or mod_autoindex
    <FilesMatch \.php$>
        SetHandler proxy:fcgi://127.0.0.1:9000
        # for Unix sockets, Apache 2.4.10 or higher
        # SetHandler proxy:unix:/path/to/fpm.sock|fcgi://dummy
    </FilesMatch>

    # If you use Apache version below 2.4.9 you must consider update or use this instead
    # ProxyPassMatch ^/(.*\.php(/.*)?)$ fcgi://127.0.0.1:9000/var/www/project/web/$1

    # If you run your Symfony application on a subpath of your document root, the
    # regular expression must be changed accordingly:
    # ProxyPassMatch ^/path-to-app/(.*\.php(/.*)?)$ fcgi://127.0.0.1:9000/var/www/project/web/$1

    DocumentRoot /var/www/project/web
    <Directory /var/www/project/web>
        # enable the .htaccess rewrites
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>

    # uncomment the following lines if you install assets as symlinks
    # or run into problems when compiling LESS/Sass/CoffeeScript assets
    # <Directory /var/www/project>
    #     Options FollowSymlinks
    # </Directory>

    ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/project_error.log
    CustomLog /var/log/apache2/project_access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

PHP-FPM with Apache 2.2

On Apache 2.2 or lower, you cannot use mod_proxy_fcgi. You have to use the FastCgiExternalServer directive instead. Therefore, your Apache configuration should look something like this:

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<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName domain.tld
    ServerAlias www.domain.tld

    AddHandler php7-fcgi .php
    Action php7-fcgi /php7-fcgi
    Alias /php7-fcgi /usr/lib/cgi-bin/php7-fcgi
    FastCgiExternalServer /usr/lib/cgi-bin/php7-fcgi -host 127.0.0.1:9000 -pass-header Authorization

    DocumentRoot /var/www/project/web
    <Directory /var/www/project/web>
        # enable the .htaccess rewrites
        AllowOverride All
        Order Allow,Deny
        Allow from all
    </Directory>

    # uncomment the following lines if you install assets as symlinks
    # or run into problems when compiling LESS/Sass/CoffeeScript assets
    # <Directory /var/www/project>
    #     Options FollowSymlinks
    # </Directory>

    ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/project_error.log
    CustomLog /var/log/apache2/project_access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

If you prefer to use a Unix socket, you have to use the -socket option instead:

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FastCgiExternalServer /usr/lib/cgi-bin/php7-fcgi -socket /var/run/php/php7.1-fpm.sock -pass-header Authorization

Nginx

The minimum configuration to get your application running under Nginx is:

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server {
    server_name domain.tld www.domain.tld;
    root /var/www/project/web;

    location / {
        # try to serve file directly, fallback to app.php
        try_files $uri /app.php$is_args$args;
    }
    # DEV
    # This rule should only be placed on your development environment
    # In production, don't include this and don't deploy app_dev.php or config.php
    location ~ ^/(app_dev|config)\.php(/|$) {
        fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.1-fpm.sock;
        fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.*)$;
        include fastcgi_params;
        # When you are using symlinks to link the document root to the
        # current version of your application, you should pass the real
        # application path instead of the path to the symlink to PHP
        # FPM.
        # Otherwise, PHP's OPcache may not properly detect changes to
        # your PHP files (see https://github.com/zendtech/ZendOptimizerPlus/issues/126
        # for more information).
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $realpath_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        fastcgi_param DOCUMENT_ROOT $realpath_root;
    }
    # PROD
    location ~ ^/app\.php(/|$) {
        fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.1-fpm.sock;
        fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.*)$;
        include fastcgi_params;
        # When you are using symlinks to link the document root to the
        # current version of your application, you should pass the real
        # application path instead of the path to the symlink to PHP
        # FPM.
        # Otherwise, PHP's OPcache may not properly detect changes to
        # your PHP files (see https://github.com/zendtech/ZendOptimizerPlus/issues/126
        # for more information).
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $realpath_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        fastcgi_param DOCUMENT_ROOT $realpath_root;
        # Prevents URIs that include the front controller. This will 404:
        # http://domain.tld/app.php/some-path
        # Remove the internal directive to allow URIs like this
        internal;
    }

    # return 404 for all other php files not matching the front controller
    # this prevents access to other php files you don't want to be accessible.
    location ~ \.php$ {
        return 404;
    }

    error_log /var/log/nginx/project_error.log;
    access_log /var/log/nginx/project_access.log;
}

Note

Depending on your PHP-FPM config, the fastcgi_pass can also be fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000.

Tip

This executes only app.php, app_dev.php and config.php in the web directory. All other files ending in ".php" will be denied.

If you have other PHP files in your web directory that need to be executed, be sure to include them in the location block above.

Caution

After you deploy to production, make sure that you cannot access the app_dev.php or config.php scripts (i.e. http://example.com/app_dev.php and http://example.com/config.php). If you can access these, be sure to remove the DEV section from the above configuration.

Note

By default, Symfony applications include several .htaccess files to configure redirections and to prevent unauthorized access to some sensitive directories. Those files are only useful when using Apache, so you can safely remove them when using Nginx.

For advanced Nginx configuration options, read the official Nginx documentation.

This work, including the code samples, is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 license.
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