Installing PHP Composer on a Synology NAS (and Laravel!

Here are some simple instructions on how to get Composer working along your Web Station package for app/web development.

Assets Used:

• DSM 6.2.x
• DSM Web Station (running nginx, but works with apache as well)
• DSM Package PHP 7.3 (you can use 5.6 as well)
• For composer to work properly User Home service is recommended to be active (Control Panel > Advanced > User > User Home)

Instructions:

1. Open Web Station, go to PHP Settings:
2. Check “phar” (PHP Archive support):
3. Press “Apply“
4. SSH your NAS, and issue the install commands (note: change folder accordingly to where you want to install it; example below will be in current directory):

   sudo su
   php -r "copy('https://getcomposer.org/installer', 'composer-setup.php');"
   php -r "if (hash_file('SHA384', 'composer-setup.php') === '544e09ee996cdf60ece3804abc52599c22b1f40f4323403c44d44fdfdd586475ca9813a858088ffbc1f233e9b180f061') { echo 'Installer verified'; } else { echo 'Installer corrupt'; unlink('composer-setup.php'); } echo PHP_EOL;"
   php composer-setup.php
   php -r "unlink('composer-setup.php');"

5. If it fails to install, just grab the new commands directly from https://getcomposer.org/download/, as the hash (in color above) will vary whenever a new version of the file is released.
6. You should see a success message as the one below:

   All settings correct for using Composer
   Downloading...
   
   Composer (version 1.4.2) successfully installed to: /volume1/homes/adminuser/composer.phar
   Use it: php composer.phar
   

7. It should run by issuing:

   php73 ~/composer.phar

Additional Notes:

• Set composer to run globally:

  sudo cp composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer
  
  

• Make it run with a more recent package of PHP:

  alias composer="/usr/local/bin/php73 /usr/local/bin/composer"
  
  

• [recommended] Make it ignore platform-requirements so that you won’t get php version warnings. Issue:

   alias composer="/usr/local/bin/php73 /usr/local/bin/composer --ignore-platform-reqs"

• To update composer, use:

  sudo composer self-update

Bonus: installing Laravel

• You’ll need User Homes service activated
• You’ll probably need to issue:

composer clear-cache

• Check if your ‘php -v‘ meets laravel’s requirements. If not, you will also need to point php to a compatible version (package needs to be installed):

alias php='/usr/local/bin/php73'

• Then you should be able to run the laravel global install command:

composer global require laravel/installer

• The binary will be located at

/var/services/homes/YOURUSERNAME/.composer/vendor/bin/laravel

• You’ll need to fix your project folder’s permissions (this is a simple consideration for a development server, not production – check this). Note that in a Synology DSM you need to consider http instead of www-data:

sudo chown -R :http .
sudo chmod -R g+r .
sudo chmod -R g+rw public/.

• When running commands, you may need to ignore package requirements, as laravel appears to be invoking php 5.6:

php73 ~/composer.phar clear-cache
php73 ~/composer.phar self-update
php73 ~/composer.phar update --ignore-platform-reqs
php73 ~/composer.phar install --ignore-platform-reqs

• Here’s an example for successfully running the Auth components of laravel/ui on a Synology

php73 ~/composer.phar require laravel/ui --ignore-platform-reqs
sudo npm install && sudo npm run dev
sudo php73 artisan ui vue --auth