drbraden / heroku-buildpack-php

A more advanced PHP buildpack for Heroku, inspired by the Node.js buildpack

Advanced PHP Heroku Build Pack

What makes it unique?

• Fast deployments, because the runtime environment is built from precompiled binaries via Heroku's "vulcan"
• Supports PHP 5.3, 5.4 and 5.5
• Uses the memory of the dyno more efficiently by going with NGINX and PHP-FPM.
• Supports Composer out of the box
• No writing NGINX configuration files: supports Classic PHP, Silex and Symfony 2 apps with simple configuration driven by your composer.json.
• Zero-Configuration Symfony 2 deployment.

What works?

• Basic provisioning
• NGINX Configuration for frameworks silex and symfony2
• Reading configuration from composer.json

How to use it

Use the --buildpack parameter when creating a new app:

heroku create --buildpack https://github.com/CHH/heroku-buildpack-php myapp

Or set the BUILDPACK_URL config var on an existing app:

heroku config:set BUILDPACK_URL=https://github.com/CHH/heroku-buildpack-php

---

If you want to be on the bleeding edge and use pre-release features, then use git://github.com/CHH/heroku-buildpack-php#development as buildpack url.

Stack

• NGINX 1.4 or 1.5
• PHP 5.3, 5.4 and 5.5, with ZendOpcache and APCu (Info)
• PHP-FPM

Detection

This buildpack detects apps when the app has a composer.json in the app's root.

If an index.php is detected in the app's root, then it switches to "classic mode", which means that every ".php" file is served with PHP, and the document root is set to the app root.

Frameworks

Symfony 2

Is detected when the app requires the symfony/symfony package or when the extra.heroku.framework key is set to symfony2 in the composer.json.

This framework preset doesn't need any configuration to work.

It's recommended to enable the user-env-compile Heroku labs feature for better compatibility with Symfony's Composer hooks. But please note that if you use config vars in Composer hooks, or in compile scripts, then a new code push may be necessary if you decide to change a config variable.

You can enable the labs feature for your app with:

$ heroku labs:enable user-env-compile

Silex

Is used when the app requires the silex/silex package or when the extra.heroku.framework key is set to silex in the composer.json.

Options:

• index-document: With Silex apps, this should be the file where $app->run() is called. All requests which don't match an existing file will be forwarded to this document.

Classic PHP

The classic PHP configuration is used as fallback when no framework was detected. It serves every .php file relative to the document root.

This is also used when an index.php file was found in the root of your project and no composer.json.

Configuration

Configuration is done via a file named composer.json in the app's root.

A simple configuration could look like this:

{
    "require": {
        "php": ">=5.4.0",
        "silex/silex": "~1.0@dev"
    },
    "extra": {
        "heroku": {
            "document-root": "web",
            "index-document": "index.php"
        }
    }
}

This configures an app with the document root set to the project's web directory, and sets that all requests should go through web/index.php which contains the application's front controller.

Configuration Directives

This buildpack supports configuration through directives placed in the heroku key in the extra object.

framework

Default: Null

Use a framework preset for configuration. Some configuration keys cannot be overriden!

Available presets:

• silex (needs document-root and index-document set)
• symfony2

Example:

"framework": "silex"

document-root

Document root relative to the app root. Defaults to the app root.

"document-root": "web"

index-document

Default: "index.php"

Index Document relative to the document root.

"index-document": "app.php"

engines

Set PHP and NGINX versions.

To launch the app with PHP 5.3.23 and NGINX 1.3.14:

"engines": {
    "php": "5.3.23",
    "nginx": "1.3.14"
}

Set the version to "default" to use the current default version. The current default versions are NGINX 1.4.2 and PHP 5.5.3.

The version identifiers can also include wildcards, e.g. 5.4.*. At the time of writing, PHP 5.4.19 would be used in this case. This also works for NGINX.

See also:

• Available NGINX Versions
• Available PHP Versions

php-config

Default: []

Add directives to the php.ini.

"php-config": [
    "display_errors=off",
    "short_open_tag=on"
]

php-includes

Default: []

Include additional .ini files that should be parsed after the default php.ini. File paths are treated relative to the app root.

Example:

"php-includes": ["etc/php.ini"]

nginx-includes

Default: []

Include additional config files into the NGINX configuration. Config files are included into the server scope and are loaded after the framework provided config. File paths are treated relative to the app root.

Example:

"nginx-includes": ["etc/nginx.conf"]

compile

Default: []

Run console commands on slug compilation.

"compile": [
    "php app/console assetic:dump --env=prod --no-debug"
]

Note: pecl is not runnable this way.

newrelic

Default: false

Enable instrumentation support via New Relic. It's recommended to add the New Relic addon to your Heroku app, but you can also set your license key manually by setting the NEW_RELIC_LICENSE_KEY config var via heroku config:set.

"newrelic": true

Contributing

Please see the CONTRIBUTING file for all the details.