Installing and Configuring Symfony
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Installing and Configuring Symfony
The goal of this chapter is to get you up and running with a working application built on top of Symfony. Fortunately, Symfony offers "distributions", which are functional Symfony "starter" projects that you can download and begin developing in immediately.
Tip
If you're looking for instructions on how best to create a new project and store it via source control, see Using Source Control.
Downloading a Symfony2 Distribution
Tip
First, check that you have installed and configured a Web server (such as Apache) with PHP 5.3.2 or higher. For more information on Symfony2 requirements, see the requirements reference.
Symfony2 packages "distributions", which are fully-functional applications that include the Symfony2 core libraries, a selection of useful bundles, a sensible directory structure and some default configuration. When you download a Symfony2 distribution, you're downloading a functional application skeleton that can be used immediately to begin developing your application.
Start by visiting the Symfony2 download page at http://symfony.com/download. On this page, you'll see the Symfony Standard Edition, which is the main Symfony2 distribution. Here, you'll need to make two choices:
- Download either a
.tgz
or.zip
archive - both are equivalent, download whatever you're more comfortable using; - Download the distribution with or without vendors. If you have Git installed on your computer, you should download Symfony2 "without vendors", as it adds a bit more flexibility when including third-party/vendor libraries.
Download one of the archives somewhere under your local web server's root
directory and unpack it. From a UNIX command line, this can be done with
one of the following commands (replacing ###
with your actual filename):
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# for .tgz file
$ tar zxvf Symfony_Standard_Vendors_2.0.###.tgz
# for a .zip file
$ unzip Symfony_Standard_Vendors_2.0.###.zip
When you're finished, you should have a Symfony/
directory that looks
something like this:
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www/
Note
You can easily override the default directory structure. See How to override Symfony's Default Directory Structure for more information.
All public files and the front controller that handles incoming requests in
a Symfony2 application live in the Symfony/web/
directory. So, assuming
you unpacked the archive into your web server's or virtual host's document root,
your application's URLs will start with http://localhost/Symfony/web/
.
To get nice and short URLs you should point the document root of your web
server or virtual host to the Symfony/web/
directory. Though this is not
required for development it is recommended when your application goes into
production as all system and configuration files become inaccessible to clients.
For information on configuring your specific web server document root, see
the following documentation: Apache | Nginx .
Note
The following examples assume you don't touch the document root settings
so all URLs start with http://localhost/Symfony/web/
Updating Vendors
Finally, if you downloaded the archive "without vendors", install the vendors by running the following command from the command line:
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$ php bin/vendors install
This command downloads all of the necessary vendor libraries - including
Symfony itself - into the vendor/
directory. For more information on
how third-party vendor libraries are managed inside Symfony2, see
"How to Create and store a Symfony2 Project in git".
Configuration and Setup
At this point, all of the needed third-party libraries now live in the vendor/
directory. You also have a default application setup in app/
and some
sample code inside the src/
directory.
Symfony2 comes with a visual server configuration tester to help make sure your Web server and PHP are configured to use Symfony. Use the following URL to check your configuration:
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http://localhost/Symfony/web/config.php
If there are any issues, correct them now before moving on.
Setting up Permissions
One common issue is that the app/cache
and app/logs
directories
must be writable both by the web server and the command line user. On
a UNIX system, if your web server user is different from your command
line user, you can run the following commands just once in your project
to ensure that permissions will be setup properly.
Note that not all web servers run as the user www-data
as in the examples
below. Instead, check which user your web server is being run as and
use it in place of www-data
.
On a UNIX system, this can be done with one of the following commands:
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$ ps aux | grep httpd
or
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$ ps aux | grep apache
1. Using ACL on a system that supports chmod +a
Many systems allow you to use the chmod +a
command. Try this first,
and if you get an error - try the next method. Be sure to replace www-data
with your web server user on the first chmod
command:
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$ rm -rf app/cache/*
$ rm -rf app/logs/*
$ sudo chmod +a "www-data allow delete,write,append,file_inherit,directory_inherit" app/cache app/logs
$ sudo chmod +a "`whoami` allow delete,write,append,file_inherit,directory_inherit" app/cache app/logs
2. Using Acl on a system that does not support chmod +a
Some systems don't support chmod +a
, but do support another utility
called setfacl
. You may need to enable ACL support on your partition
and install setfacl before using it (as is the case with Ubuntu), like
so:
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$ sudo setfacl -R -m u:www-data:rwX -m u:`whoami`:rwX app/cache app/logs
$ sudo setfacl -dR -m u:www-data:rwx -m u:`whoami`:rwx app/cache app/logs
3. Without using ACL
If you don't have access to changing the ACL of the directories, you will
need to change the umask so that the cache and log directories will
be group-writable or world-writable (depending if the web server user
and the command line user are in the same group or not). To achieve
this, put the following line at the beginning of the app/console
,
web/app.php
and web/app_dev.php
files:
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umask(0002); // This will let the permissions be 0775
// or
umask(0000); // This will let the permissions be 0777
Note that using the ACL is recommended when you have access to them on your server because changing the umask is not thread-safe.
When everything is fine, click on "Go to the Welcome page" to request your first "real" Symfony2 webpage:
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http://localhost/Symfony/web/app_dev.php/
Symfony2 should welcome and congratulate you for your hard work so far!

Tip
To get nice and short urls you should point the document root of your
webserver or virtual host to the Symfony/web/
directory. Though
this is not required for development it is recommended at the time your
application goes into production as all system and configuration files
become inaccessible to clients then. For information on configuring
your specific web server document root, read
Configuring a web server
or consult the official documentation of your webserver:
Apache | Nginx .
Beginning Development
Now that you have a fully-functional Symfony2 application, you can begin
development! Your distribution may contain some sample code - check the
README.md
file included with the distribution (open it as a text file)
to learn about what sample code was included with your distribution.
If you're new to Symfony, check out "Creating Pages in Symfony2", where you'll learn how to create pages, change configuration, and do everything else you'll need in your new application.
Note
If you want to remove the sample code from your distribution, take a look at this cookbook article: "How to remove the AcmeDemoBundle"
Using Source Control
If you're using a version control system like Git
or Subversion
, you
can setup your version control system and begin committing your project to
it as normal. The Symfony Standard edition is the starting point for your
new project.
For specific instructions on how best to setup your project to be stored in git, see How to Create and store a Symfony2 Project in git.
Ignoring the vendor/
Directory
If you've downloaded the archive without vendors, you can safely ignore
the entire vendor/
directory and not commit it to source control. With
Git
, this is done by creating and adding the following to a .gitignore
file:
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vendor/
Now, the vendor directory won't be committed to source control. This is fine
(actually, it's great!) because when someone else clones or checks out the
project, he/she can simply run the php bin/vendors install
script to
download all the necessary vendor libraries.