* :doc:`/cookbook/workflow/homestead`

.. index:: Vagrant, Homestead

Using Symfony with Homestead/Vagrant

In order to develop a Symfony application, you might want to use a virtual

development environment instead of the built-in server or WAMP/LAMP. Homestead_

is an easy-to-use Vagrant_ box to get a virtual environment up and running

quickly.

.. tip::

Due to the amount of filesystem operations in Symfony (e.g. updating cache

files and writing to log files), Symfony can slow down signifcantly. To

improve the speed, consider :ref:`overriding the cache and log directories <override-cache-dir>`

to a location outside the NFS share (for instance, by using

:phpfunction:`sys_get_temp_dir`). You can read `this blog post`_ for more

tips to speed up Symfony on Vagrant.

Install Vagrant and Homestead

Before you can use Homestead, you need to install and configure Vagrant and

Homestead as explained in `the Homestead documentation`_.

Setting Up a Symfony Application

Imagine you've installed your Symfony application in

``~/projects/symfony_demo`` on your local system. You first need Homestead to

sync your files in this project. Execute ``homestead edit`` to edit the

Homestead configuration and configure the ``~/projects`` directory:

.. code-block:: yaml

The ``projects/`` directory on your PC is now accessible at

``/home/vagrant/projects`` in the Homestead environment.

After you've done this, configure the Symfony application in the Homestead

configuration:

.. code-block:: yaml

The ``type`` option tells Homestead to use the Symfony nginx configuration.

At last, edit the hosts file on your local machine to map ``symfony-demo.dev``

to ``192.168.10.10`` (which is the IP used by Homestead)::

Now, navigate to ``http://symfony-demo.dev`` in your web browser and enjoy

developing your Symfony application!

.. seealso::

To learn more features of Homestead, including Blackfire Profiler

integration, automatic creation of MySQL databases and more, read the

`Daily Usage`_ section of the Homestead documentation.

.. _Homestead: http://laravel.com/docs/homestead

.. _Vagrant: https://www.vagrantup.com/

.. _the Homestead documentation: http://laravel.com/docs/homestead#installation-and-setup

.. _Daily Usage: http://laravel.com/docs/5.1/homestead#daily-usage

.. _this blog post: http://www.whitewashing.de/2013/08/19/speedup_symfony2_on_vagrant_boxes.html

homestead