Running Your App
A CodeIgniter 4 app can be run in a number of different ways: hosted on a web server, using virtualization, or using CodeIgniter’s command line tool for testing. This section addresses how to use each technique, and explains some of the pros and cons of them.
Important
You should always be careful about the case of filenames. Many developers develop on case-insensitive file systems on Windows or macOS. However, most server environments use case-sensitive file systems. If the file name case is incorrect, code that works locally will not work on the server.
If you’re new to CodeIgniter, please read the Getting Started section of the User Guide to begin learning how to build dynamic PHP applications. Enjoy!
Initial Configuration
Configure for Your Site URIs
Open the app/Config/App.php file with a text editor.
- $baseURL
Set your base URL to
$baseURL. If you need more flexibility, the baseURL may be set within the .env file asapp.baseURL = 'http://example.com/'. Always use a trailing slash on your base URL!Note
If you don’t set the
baseURLcorrectly, in development mode, the debug toolbar may not load properly and web pages may take considerably longer to display.
- $indexPage
If you don’t want to include index.php in your site URIs, set
$indexPageto''. The setting will be used when the framework generates your site URIs.Note
You may need to configure your web server to access your site with a URL that does not contain index.php. See CodeIgniter URLs.
Configure Database Connection Settings
If you intend to use a database, open the app/Config/Database.php file with a text editor and set your database settings. Alternately, these could be set in your .env file. See Database Configuration for details.
Set to Development Mode
If it is not on the production server, set CI_ENVIRONMENT to development
in .env file to take advantage of the debugging tools provided. See
Setting Development Mode for the detail.
Important
In production environments, you should disable error display and any other development-only functionality. In CodeIgniter, this can be done by setting the environment to “production”. By default, the application will run using the “production” environment. See also The ENVIRONMENT Constant.
Set Writable Folder Permission
If you will be running your site using a web server (e.g., Apache or nginx), you will need to modify the permissions for the writable folder inside your project, so that it is writable by the user or account used by your web server.
Checking PHP ini Settings
New in version 4.5.0.
PHP ini settings change the behaviors of PHP. CodeIgniter provides a command to check important PHP settings.
php spark phpini:check
The Recommended column shows the recommended values for production environment. They may differ in development environments.
Note
If you cannot use the spark command, you can use CheckPhpIni::run(false)
in your controller.
E.g.,
<?php
namespace App\Controllers;
use CodeIgniter\Security\CheckPhpIni;
class Home extends BaseController
{
public function index(): string
{
return CheckPhpIni::run(false);
}
}
Local Development Server
CodeIgniter 4 comes with a local development server, leveraging PHP’s built-in web server with CodeIgniter routing. You can launch it, with the following command line in the main directory:
php spark serve
This will launch the server and you can now view your application in your browser at http://localhost:8080.
Note
The built-in development server should only be used on local development machines. It should NEVER be used on a production server.
If you need to run the site on a host other than simply localhost, you’ll first need to add the host to your hosts file. The exact location of the file varies in each of the main operating systems, though all unix-type systems (including macOS) will typically keep the file at /etc/hosts.
The local development server can be customized with three command line options:
You can use the
--hostCLI option to specify a different host to run the application at:php spark serve --host example.devBy default, the server runs on port 8080 but you might have more than one site running, or already have another application using that port. You can use the
--portCLI option to specify a different one:php spark serve --port 8081You can also specify a specific version of PHP to use, with the
--phpCLI option, with its value set to the path of the PHP executable you want to use:php spark serve --php /usr/bin/php7.6.5.4
Hosting with Apache
A CodeIgniter4 webapp is normally hosted on a web server. Apache HTTP Server is the “standard” platform, and assumed in much of our documentation.
Apache is bundled with many platforms, but can also be downloaded in a bundle with a database engine and PHP from Bitnami.
Configure Main Config File
Enabling mod_rewrite
The “mod_rewrite” module enables URLs without “index.php” in them, and is assumed in our user guide.
Make sure that the rewrite module is enabled (uncommented) in the main configuration file, e.g., apache2/conf/httpd.conf:
LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so
Setting Document Root
Also make sure that the default document root’s <Directory> element enables this too,
in the AllowOverride setting:
<Directory "/opt/lamp/apache2/htdocs">
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
</Directory>
Hosting with VirtualHost
We recommend using “virtual hosting” to run your apps. You can set up different aliases for each of the apps you work on,
Enabling vhost_alias_module
Make sure that the virtual hosting module is enabled (uncommented) in the main configuration file, e.g., apache2/conf/httpd.conf:
LoadModule vhost_alias_module modules/mod_vhost_alias.so
Adding Host Alias
Add a host alias in your “hosts” file, typically /etc/hosts on unix-type platforms, or c:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts on Windows.
Add a line to the file.
This could be myproject.local or myproject.test, for instance:
127.0.0.1 myproject.local
Setting VirtualHost
Add a <VirtualHost> element for your webapp inside the virtual hosting configuration,
e.g., apache2/conf/extra/httpd-vhost.conf:
<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot "/opt/lamp/apache2/myproject/public"
ServerName myproject.local
ErrorLog "logs/myproject-error_log"
CustomLog "logs/myproject-access_log" common
<Directory "/opt/lamp/apache2/myproject/public">
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>
The above configuration assumes the project folder is located as follows:
apache2/
├── myproject/ (Project Folder)
│ └── public/ (DocumentRoot for myproject.local)
└── htdocs/
Restart Apache.
Testing
With the above configuration, your webapp would be accessed with the URL http://myproject.local/ in your browser.
Apache needs to be restarted whenever you change its configuration.
Hosting with Subfolder
If you want a baseURL like http://localhost/myproject/ with a subfolder, there are three ways.
Making Symlink
Place your project folder as follows, where htdocs is the Apache document root:
├── myproject/ (project folder)
│ └── public/
└── htdocs/
Navigate to the htdocs folder and create a symbolic link as follows:
cd htdocs/
ln -s ../myproject/public/ myproject
Using Alias
Place your project folder as follows, where htdocs is the Apache document root:
├── myproject/ (project folder)
│ └── public/
└── htdocs/
Add the following in the main configuration file, e.g., apache2/conf/httpd.conf:
Alias /myproject /opt/lamp/apache2/myproject/public
<Directory "/opt/lamp/apache2/myproject/public">
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
</Directory>
Restart Apache.
Adding .htaccess
The last resort is to add .htaccess to the project root.
It is not recommended that you place the project folder in the document root. However, if you have no other choice, like on a shared server, you can use this.
Place your project folder as follows, where htdocs is the Apache document root, and create the .htaccess file:
└── htdocs/
└── myproject/ (project folder)
├── .htaccess
└── public/
And edit .htaccess as follows:
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ public/$1 [L]
</IfModule>
<FilesMatch "^\.">
Require all denied
Satisfy All
</FilesMatch>
And remove the redirect settings in public/.htaccess:
--- a/public/.htaccess
+++ b/public/.htaccess
@@ -16,16 +16,6 @@ Options -Indexes
# http://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/mod/mod_rewrite.html#rewritebase
# RewriteBase /
- # Redirect Trailing Slashes...
- RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
- RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} (.+)/$
- RewriteRule ^ %1 [L,R=301]
-
- # Rewrite "www.example.com -> example.com"
- RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
- RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(.+)$ [NC]
- RewriteRule ^ http://%1%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]
-
# Checks to see if the user is attempting to access a valid file,
# such as an image or css document, if this isn't true it sends the
# request to the front controller, index.php
Removing the index.php
See CodeIgniter URLs.
Setting Environment
Hosting with nginx
nginx is the second most widely used HTTP server for web hosting. Here you can find an example configuration using PHP 8.1 FPM (unix sockets) under Ubuntu Server.
default.conf
This configuration enables URLs without “index.php” in them and using CodeIgniter’s “404 - File Not Found” for URLs ending with “.php”.
server {
listen 80;
listen [::]:80;
server_name example.com;
root /var/www/example.com/public;
index index.php index.html index.htm;
location / {
try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php$is_args$args;
}
location ~ \.php$ {
include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
# With php-fpm:
fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php8.1-fpm.sock;
# With php-cgi:
# fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
}
error_page 404 /index.php;
# deny access to hidden files such as .htaccess
location ~ /\. {
deny all;
}
}
Setting Environment
Bootstrapping the App
In some scenarios you will want to load the framework without actually running the whole application. This is particularly useful for unit testing your project, but may also be handy for using third-party tools to analyze and modify your code. The framework comes with a separate bootstrap script specifically for this scenario: system/Test/bootstrap.php.
Most of the paths to your project are defined during the bootstrap process. You may use pre-defined constants to override these, but when using the defaults be sure that your paths align with the expected directory structure for your installation method.