Using Apache for Developing with Symfony

After getting Symfony to work, we might want to switch away from the build in PHP web server, to a more reliable one. I’ll use the Apache server because it comes with the latest OS X version.

$ apachectl -v
Server version: Apache/2.4.9 (Unix)
Server built:   Sep  9 2014 14:48:20

Open the apache config file located at /etc/apache2/httpd.conf and and remove the comment (#) before the following three lines:

LoadModule php5_module libexec/apache2/libphp5.so           (line ~169)
Include /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf        (line ~499)
Include /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-default.conf       (line ~508)

Save and close the file. Open the vhost configuration file located at /etc/apache/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf. Remove everything and add the following configurations:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    DocumentRoot "/Library/WebServer/Documents"
    ErrorLog "/private/var/log/apache2/default.error.log"
    CustomLog "/private/var/log/apache2/default.access.log" common
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName dev.symfony

    DocumentRoot "/Users/[username]/symfony/web/"
    <Directory "/Users/[username]/symfony/web/">
        Options Indexes FollowSymlinks MultiViews
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>

    ErrorLog "/Users/[username]/symfony/app/logs/apache.error.log"
    CustomLog "/Users/[username]/symfony/app/logs/apache.access.log" common
</VirtualHost>

Do not forget to replace your [username] or change your path accordingly.

This configuration adds two new virtual hosts. One for localhost and one for dev.symfony. When you start your apache with sudo apachectl start the first one should work out of the box and you should get a It works! back.

For the second entry you need to edit your /etc/hosts file and add the new domain name:

127.0.0.1       localhost dev.symfony

Open dev.symfony in your browser and you can access your symfony installation (or dev.symfony/config.php if you have a fresh installation of symfony).