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):

# 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:

www/ <- your web root directory
    Symfony/ <- the unpacked archive
        app/
            cache/
            config/
            logs/
        src/
            ...
        vendor/
            ...
        web/
            app.php
            ...

Updating Vendors

Finally, if you downloaded the archive “without vendors”, install the vendors by running the following command from the command line:

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 “cookbook-managing-vendor-libraries”.

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:

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. Change www-data to your web server user:

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:

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:

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:

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:

http://localhost/Symfony/web/app_dev.php/

Symfony2 should welcome and congratulate you for your hard work so far!

../_images/welcome.jpg

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.rst file included with the distribution (open it as a text file) to learn about what sample code was included with your distribution and how you can remove it later.

If you’re new to Symfony, join us in the “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.

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:

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.