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How to Use PHP’s built-in Web Server
How to Use PHP’s built-in Web Server¶
New in version 2.6: The ability to run the server as a background process was introduced in Symfony 2.6.
Since PHP 5.4 the CLI SAPI comes with a built-in web server. It can be used to run your PHP applications locally during development, for testing or for application demonstrations. This way, you don’t have to bother configuring a full-featured web server such as Apache or Nginx.
Caution
The built-in web server is meant to be run in a controlled environment. It is not designed to be used on public networks.
Starting the Web Server¶
Running a Symfony application using PHP’s built-in web server is as easy as
executing the server:start command:
1 | $ php app/console server:start
|
This starts the web server at localhost:8000 in the background that serves
your Symfony application.
By default, the web server listens on port 8000 on the loopback device. You can change the socket passing an IP address and a port as a command-line argument:
1 | $ php app/console server:start 192.168.0.1:8080
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Note
You can use the server:status command to check if a web server is
listening on a certain socket:
1 2 3 | $ php app/console server:status
$ php app/console server:status 192.168.0.1:8080
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The first command shows if your Symfony application will be server through
localhost:8000, the second one does the same for 192.168.0.1:8080.
Note
Before Symfony 2.6, the server:run command was used to start the built-in
web server. This command is still available and behaves slightly different.
Instead of starting the server in the background, it will block the current
terminal until you terminate it (this is usually done by pressing Ctrl
and C).
Command Options¶
The built-in web server expects a “router” script (read about the “router”
script on php.net) as an argument. Symfony already passes such a router
script when the command is executed in the prod or dev environment.
Use the --router option to use your own router script:
1 | $ php app/console server:start --router=app/config/my_router.php
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If your application’s document root differs from the standard directory layout,
you have to pass the correct location using the --docroot option:
1 | $ php app/console server:start --docroot=public_html
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Stopping the Server¶
When you are finished, you can simply stop the web server using the server:stop
command:
1 | $ php app/console server:stop
|
Like with the start command, if you omit the socket information, Symfony will
stop the web server bound to localhost:8000. Just pass the socket information
when the web server listens to another IP address or to another port:
1 | $ php app/console server:stop 192.168.0.1:8080
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This work, including the code samples, is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 license.