Configuring a Web Server ¶
The preferred way to develop your Symfony application is to use Symfony Local Web Server.
However, 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.
Adding Rewrite Rules ¶
The easiest way is to install the apache Symfony pack
by executing the following command:
1 |
$ composer require symfony/apache-pack
|
This pack installs a .htaccess file in the public/ directory that contains
the rewrite rules needed to serve the Symfony application.
In production servers, you should move the .htaccess rules into the main
Apache configuration file to improve performance. To do so, copy the
.htaccess contents inside the <Directory> configuration associated to
the Symfony application public/ directory (and replace AllowOverride All
by AllowOverride None):
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 |
<VirtualHost *:80>
# ...
DocumentRoot /var/www/project/public
<Directory /var/www/project/public>
AllowOverride None
# Copy .htaccess contents here
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>
|
Apache with mod_php/PHP-CGI ¶
The minimum configuration to get your application running under Apache is:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 |
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName domain.tld
ServerAlias www.domain.tld
DocumentRoot /var/www/project/public
<Directory /var/www/project/public>
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:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 |
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName domain.tld
ServerAlias www.domain.tld
DocumentRoot /var/www/project/public
DirectoryIndex /index.php
<Directory /var/www/project/public>
AllowOverride None
Order Allow,Deny
Allow from All
FallbackResource /index.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/public/bundles>
DirectoryIndex disabled
FallbackResource disabled
</Directory>
ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/project_error.log
CustomLog /var/log/apache2/project_access.log combined
# optionally set the value of the environment variables used in the application
#SetEnv APP_ENV prod
#SetEnv APP_SECRET <app-secret-id>
#SetEnv DATABASE_URL "mysql://db_user:db_pass@host:3306/db_name"
</VirtualHost>
|
Caution
Use FallbackResource on Apache 2.4.25 or higher, due to a bug which was
fixed on that release causing the root / to hang.
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:
1 |
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:
1 2 3 4 |
<Directory /var/www/project/public>
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 php7.4-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:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 |
; a pool called www
[www]
user = www-data
group = www-data
; use a unix domain socket
listen = /var/run/php/php7.4-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 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:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 |
<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/public/$1
# If you run your Symfony application on a subpath of your document root, the
# regular expression must be changed accordingly:
# ProxyPassMatch ^/path-to-app/(.*\.php(/.*)?)$ fcgi://127.0.0.1:9000/var/www/project/public/$1
DocumentRoot /var/www/project/public
<Directory /var/www/project/public>
# 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:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 |
<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/public
<Directory /var/www/project/public>
# 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:
1 |
FastCgiExternalServer /usr/lib/cgi-bin/php7-fcgi -socket /var/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock -pass-header Authorization
|
Nginx ¶
The minimum configuration to get your application running under Nginx is:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 |
server {
server_name domain.tld www.domain.tld;
root /var/www/project/public;
location / {
# try to serve file directly, fallback to index.php
try_files $uri /index.php$is_args$args;
}
# optionally disable falling back to PHP script for the asset directories;
# nginx will return a 404 error when files are not found instead of passing the
# request to Symfony (improves performance but Symfony's 404 page is not displayed)
# location /bundles {
# try_files $uri =404;
# }
location ~ ^/index\.php(/|$) {
fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock;
fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.*)$;
include fastcgi_params;
# optionally set the value of the environment variables used in the application
# fastcgi_param APP_ENV prod;
# fastcgi_param APP_SECRET <app-secret-id>;
# fastcgi_param DATABASE_URL "mysql://db_user:db_pass@host:3306/db_name";
# 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).
# Caveat: When PHP-FPM is hosted on a different machine from nginx
# $realpath_root may not resolve as you expect! In this case try using
# $document_root instead.
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $realpath_root$fastcgi_script_name;
fastcgi_param DOCUMENT_ROOT $realpath_root;
# Prevents URIs that include the front controller. This will 404:
# http://domain.tld/index.php/some-path
# Remove the internal directive to allow URIs like this
internal;
}
# return 404 for all other php files not matching the front controller
# this prevents access to other php files you don't want to be accessible.
location ~ \.php$ {
return 404;
}
error_log /var/log/nginx/project_error.log;
access_log /var/log/nginx/project_access.log;
}
|
Tip
If you use NGINX Unit, check out the official article about How to run Symfony applications using NGINX Unit.
Note
Depending on your PHP-FPM config, the fastcgi_pass can also be
fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000.
Tip
This executes only index.php in the public directory. All other files
ending in ".php" will be denied.
If you have other PHP files in your public 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 index.php
script (i.e. http://example.com/index.php).
For advanced Nginx configuration options, read the official Nginx documentation.