How to Use PHP’s built-in Web Server
How to Use PHP’s built-in Web Server¶
The PHP 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.
Tip
The preferred way to develop your Symfony application is to use Symfony Local Web Server.
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.
Symfony provides a web server built on top of this PHP server to simplify your local setup. This server is distributed as a bundle, so you must first install and enable the server bundle.
Installing the Web Server Bundle¶
First, execute this command:
1 2 | $ cd your-project/
$ composer require --dev symfony/web-server-bundle
|
Then, enable the bundle in the kernel of the application:
// app/AppKernel.php
class AppKernel extends Kernel
{
public function registerBundles()
{
$bundles = [
// ...
];
if ('dev' === $this->getEnvironment()) {
// ...
$bundles[] = new Symfony\Bundle\WebServerBundle\WebServerBundle();
}
// ...
}
// ...
}
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 bin/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 2 3 4 5 | # passing a specific IP and port
$ php bin/console server:start 192.168.0.1:8080
# passing '*' as the IP means to use 0.0.0.0 (i.e. any local IP address)
$ php bin/console server:start *:8080
|
New in version 3.4: The support of * as a valid IP address was introduced in Symfony 3.4.
Note
You can use the server:status command to check if a web server is
listening:
1 | $ php bin/console server:status
|
Tip
Some systems do not support the server:start command, in these cases
you can execute the server:run command. This command 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 bin/console server:start --router=app/config/my_router.php
|
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 bin/console server:start --docroot=public_html
|
Stopping the Server¶
When you finish your work, you can stop the web server with the following command:
1 | $ php bin/console server:stop
|
This work, including the code samples, is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 license.