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Our app is a big 500 error because Symfony can't write to its cache directory.

This is an easy fix... well mostly. Let's start with the easy part: if we 777 the var/ directory, we should be good.

Add a new task at the end: "Fix var directory permissions":

163 lines ansible/playbook.yml
---
- hosts: vb
... lines 3 - 9
tasks:
... lines 11 - 143
- name: Fix var directory permissions
... lines 145 - 163

To refer to the var/ directory, I'll create another variable: symfony_var_dir set to {{ symfony_root_dir }}/var:

163 lines ansible/playbook.yml
---
- hosts: vb
vars:
... line 5
symfony_root_dir: /var/www/project
... line 7
symfony_var_dir: "{{ symfony_root_dir }}/var"
... lines 9 - 163

Back at the bottom, use the file module, set the path to the new variable, and state to directory:

163 lines ansible/playbook.yml
---
- hosts: vb
... lines 3 - 9
tasks:
... lines 11 - 143
- name: Fix var directory permissions
file:
path: "{{ symfony_var_dir }}"
state: directory
... lines 148 - 163

That'll create the directory if it doesn't exist, but, it should. Then, they key part: mode: 0777 and recurse: yes:

163 lines ansible/playbook.yml
---
- hosts: vb
... lines 3 - 9
tasks:
... lines 11 - 143
- name: Fix var directory permissions
file:
path: "{{ symfony_var_dir }}"
state: directory
mode: 0777
recurse: yes
... lines 150 - 163

Tip

If you're going to 777 your var/ directory, make sure that you've uncommented the umask calls in app.php, app_dev.php and bin/console:

26 lines web/app.php
<?php
... lines 2 - 4
// If you don't want to setup permissions the proper way, just uncomment the following PHP line
// read http://symfony.com/doc/current/book/installation.html#checking-symfony-application-configuration-and-setup
// for more information
umask(0000);
... lines 9 - 26

33 lines web/app_dev.php
<?php
... lines 2 - 5
// If you don't want to setup permissions the proper way, just uncomment the following PHP line
// read http://symfony.com/doc/current/book/installation.html#checking-symfony-application-configuration-and-setup
// for more information
umask(0000);
... lines 10 - 33

30 lines bin/console
#!/usr/bin/env php
... lines 3 - 7
// if you don't want to setup permissions the proper way, just uncomment the following PHP line
// read http://symfony.com/doc/current/book/installation.html#configuration-and-setup for more information
umask(0000);
... lines 11 - 30

You can see this in the finished code download.

Ok, run the playbook!

ansible-playbook ansible/playbook.yml -i ansible/hosts.ini

By the way, needing to re-run the entire playbook after a tiny change is annoying! We'll learn a trick in a minute to help with this.

Done! Ok, switch back to your browser and try it. Woohoo! A working Symfony project... not our project yet, but still, winning! We'll use our real project next.

Fixing Permissions... in a more Secure Way?

Setting the directory permissions to 777 is easy... and perfectly fine for a development machine. But if this were a production machine, well, 777 isn't ideal... though honestly, a lot of people do this.

What's better? In a few minutes, we'll add a task to clear and warm up Symfony's cache. On a production machine, after you've done that, you can set the var/cache permissions back to be non-writeable, so 555. In theory, that should just work! But in practice, you'll probably need to tweak a few other settings to use non-filesystem cache - like making annotations cache in APC.

But, that's more about deployment - which we'll save for a different course!

Leave a comment!

This tutorial is built using an older version of Symfony, but the core concepts of Ansible are still valid. New versions of Ansible may contain some features that we don't use here.
Symfony 3 Ansible 2.1

What PHP libraries does this tutorial use?

// composer.json
{
    "require": {
        "php": ">=5.5.9",
        "symfony/symfony": "3.1.*", // v3.1.4
        "doctrine/orm": "^2.5", // v2.7.2
        "doctrine/doctrine-bundle": "^1.6", // 1.6.4
        "doctrine/doctrine-cache-bundle": "^1.2", // 1.3.0
        "symfony/swiftmailer-bundle": "^2.3", // v2.3.11
        "symfony/monolog-bundle": "^2.8", // 2.11.1
        "symfony/polyfill-apcu": "^1.0", // v1.2.0
        "sensio/distribution-bundle": "^5.0", // v5.0.12
        "sensio/framework-extra-bundle": "^3.0.2", // v3.0.16
        "incenteev/composer-parameter-handler": "^2.0", // v2.1.2
        "doctrine/doctrine-migrations-bundle": "^1.2", // v1.2.0
        "snc/redis-bundle": "^2.0", // 2.0.0
        "predis/predis": "^1.1", // v1.1.1
        "composer/package-versions-deprecated": "^1.11" // 1.11.99
    },
    "require-dev": {
        "sensio/generator-bundle": "^3.0", // v3.0.8
        "symfony/phpunit-bridge": "^3.0", // v3.1.4
        "doctrine/data-fixtures": "^1.1", // 1.3.3
        "hautelook/alice-bundle": "^1.3" // v1.4.1
    }
}
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