Install Symfony framework on CPanel hosting

Yesterday, I ordered a shared hosting package for malam.or.id and planned to run a minimal Symfony project on it.

I needed to customize the Symfony folder structure because the hosting used CPanel and Apache as the web server.

CPanel served all html files under public_html directory and Symfony uses public directory as entry point or front page.

So, all I need to do is tell Symfony that we will use public_html as front page instead of public directory.

# new structure
root/
 ├─ public_html/
 │  └─ index.php
 └─ sfapp/
    ├─ bin/
    ├─ config/
    ├─ src/
    ├─ ...
    ├─ vendor/
    └─ .env

To achieve this, we need to follow the instructions in the documentation.

Copy index.php from the public directory to public_html and change the path to autoload_runtime.php file.
In my case, change to: require_once dirname(__DIR__).'/sfapp/vendor/autoload_runtime.php';

Add extra configuration to composer.json

{
  "extra": {
    "...": "...",
    "public-dir": "../public_html"
  }
}

Because the hosting use Apache as web server, add symfony/apache-pack to composer. This package will create a .htaccess file in public_html directory.

Done! we ready to deploy Symfony app to the hosting.