Web Servers

It is typical to use the Front-Controller pattern to funnel appropriate HTTP requests received by your web server to a single PHP file. The instructions below explain how to tell your web server to send HTTP requests to your PHP front-controller file.

PHP built-in server

Run the following command in terminal to start localhost web server, assuming ./public/ is public-accessible directory with index.php file:

cd public/
php -S localhost:8888

If you are not using index.php as your entry point then change appropriately.

Warning: The built-in web server was designed to aid application development. It may also be useful for testing purposes or for application demonstrations that are run in controlled environments. It is not intended to be a full-featured web server. It should not be used on a public network.

Apache configuration

Ensure that the Apache mod_rewrite module is installed and enabled. In order to enable mod_rewrite you can type the following command in the terminal:

sudo a2enmod rewrite
sudo a2enmod actions

Ensure your .htaccess and index.php files are in the same public-accessible directory. The .htaccess file should contain this code:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^ index.php [QSA,L]

To ensure that the public/ directory does not appear in the URL, you should add a second .htaccess file above the public/ directory with the following internal redirect rule:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^$ public/ [L]
RewriteRule (.*) public/$1 [L]

These .htaccess files require URL rewriting.

Make sure to enable Apache’s mod_rewrite module and your virtual host is configured with the AllowOverride option so that the .htaccess rewrite rules can be used: To do this, the file /etc/apache2/apache2.conf must be opened in an editor with root privileges.

Change the <Directory ...> directive from AllowOveride None to AllowOveride All.

Example

<Directory /var/www/>
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride All
    Require all granted
</Directory>

Finally, the configuration of Apache must be reloaded. To restart Apache web server, enter:

sudo service apache2 restart

This command works on most Debian/Ubuntu variants. For all other Linux distributions, please consult the documentation of your specific Linux distribution to find out how to restart Apache.

Running in a sub-directory

This example assumes that the front controller is located in public/index.php.

To “redirect” the sub-directory to the front-controller create a second .htaccess file above the public/ directory.

The second .htaccess file should contain this code:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^$ public/ [L]
RewriteRule (.*) public/$1 [L]

You may also set the base path so that the router can match the URL from the browser with the path set in the route registration. This is done with the setBasePath() method.

$app->setBasePath('/myapp');

Read more

Nginx configuration

This is an example Nginx virtual host configuration for the domain example.com. It listens for inbound HTTP connections on port 80. It assumes a PHP-FPM server is running on port 9123. You should update the server_name, error_log, access_log, and root directives with your own values. The root directive is the path to your application’s public document root directory; your Slim app’s index.php front-controller file should be in this directory.

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name example.com;
    index index.php;
    error_log /path/to/example.error.log;
    access_log /path/to/example.access.log;
    root /path/to/public;

    location / {
        try_files $uri /index.php$is_args$args;
    }

    location ~ \.php {
        try_files $uri =404;
        fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
        include fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_NAME $fastcgi_script_name;
        fastcgi_index index.php;
        fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9123;
    }
}

Caddy

The Caddy configuration is located in /etc/caddy/Caddyfile. Caddy requires php-fpm and have the FPM server running. Assuming the FPM socket is at /var/run/php/php-fpm.sock, and your application is located in /var/www, the following configuration should work out of the box.

HTTP configuration listening for any request

:80 {
        # Set-up the FCGI location
        php_fastcgi unix//var/run/php/php-fpm.sock
        # Set this path to your site's directory.
        root * /var/www/public
}

HTTPS configuration with self-signed certificate

:443 {
        tls internal
        # Set-up the FCGI location
        php_fastcgi unix//var/run/php/php-fpm.sock
        # Set this path to your site's directory.
        root * /var/www/public
}

IIS

Ensure the Web.config and index.php files are in the same public-accessible directory. The Web.config file should contain this code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<configuration>
    <system.webServer>
        <rewrite>
            <rules>
                <rule name="slim" patternSyntax="Wildcard">
                    <match url="*" />
                    <conditions>
                        <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsFile" negate="true" />
                        <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsDirectory" negate="true" />
                    </conditions>
                    <action type="Rewrite" url="index.php" />
                </rule>
            </rules>
        </rewrite>
    </system.webServer>
</configuration>

lighttpd

Your lighttpd configuration file should contain this code (along with other settings you may need). This code requires lighttpd >= 1.4.24.

url.rewrite-if-not-file = ("(.*)" => "/index.php/$0")

This assumes that Slim’s index.php is in the root folder of your project (www root).

Run From a Sub-Directory

If you want to run your Slim Application from a sub-directory in your Server’s Root instead of creating a Virtual Host, you can configure $app->setBasePath('/path-to-your-app'); right after the AppFactory::create();. Assuming that your Server’s Root is /var/www/html/ and path to your Slim Application is /var/www/html/my-slim-app you can set the base path to $app->setBasePath('/my-slim-app');.

<?php

use Slim\Factory\AppFactory;
// ...

$app = AppFactory::create();
$app->setBasePath('/my-slim-app');

// ...

$app->run();