Howtos on various subjects / Running Bolt using PHP's built-in web server

Note: You are currently reading the documentation for Bolt 2.2. Looking for the documentation for Bolt 5.2 instead?

For development and testing purposes it is ofter useful to use PHP's built-in web server rather than setting up Apache or Ningx.

The approach to achieving this varies slightly depending on how Bolt is installed locally.

Git & Zip Installs ¶

Simply navigate to your Bolt directory and issue the command:

/usr/bin/php -S localhost:80 -t . index.php

Composer Installs¶

Using a Composer install of Bolt is a little more complicated, due to the need for redirects, but still rather straightforward.

In your Bolt root directory create a file called local.php and add the following:

<?php

if (preg_match('/^\/(?:thumbs)/', $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'])) {
    include __DIR__ . '/index.php';
} elseif (preg_match('/\.(?:png|jpg|jpeg|gif|css|js|ico|ttf|woff|woff2)$/', $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'])) {
    return false;
} elseif (preg_match('/\.(?:ttf|woff|woff2)?/', $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'])) {
    return false;
} else {
    include __DIR__ . '/index.php';
}

The you can run the web server with this command:

/usr/bin/php -S localhost:8123 -t . local.php

NOTE: Currently the editing of YAML and Twig files via the admin pages doesn't work.