Installing Yii

You can install Yii in two ways, using Composer or downloading an archive file. The former is the preferred way as it allows you to install new extensions or update Yii by running a single command.

Installing via Composer

If you do not already have Composer installed, you may get it by following the instructions at getcomposer.org, or simply

on Linux or Mac, run the following commands:

curl -s http://getcomposer.org/installer | php
mv composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer

on Windows, download and run Composer-Setup.exe.

Please refer to the Composer Documentation if you encounter any problems or want to learn more about the Composer usage.

With Composer installed, you can install Yii by running the following command under a Web accessible folder:

composer create-project --prefer-dist yiisoft/yii2-app-basic basic

The above command installs Yii as a directory named basic.

Tip: If you want to install the latest development version of Yii, you may use the following command which adds a stability option:

composer create-project --prefer-dist --stability=dev yiisoft/yii2-app-basic basic

Note that the development version of Yii should not be used for production as it may break your running code.

Installing from an Archive File

Installing Yii from an archive file involves two steps:

Download the archive file from yiiframework.com;
Unpack the downloaded file to a Web accessible folder.

Other Installation Options

The above installation instructions show how to install Yii in terms of a basic Web application that works out of box. It is a good start for small projects or if you just start learning Yii.

There are other installation options available:

If you only want to install the core framework and would like to build an application from scratch, you may follow the instructions as explained in Building Application from Scratch.
If you want to start with a more sophisticated application that supports team development environment, you may consider Advanced Application Template.

Verifying Installation

After installation, you can use your browser to access the installed Yii application with the following URL, assuming you have installed Yii in a directory named basic that is under the document root of your Web server,

http://localhost/basic/web/index.php

You should see a "Congratulations!" page in your browser. If not, please check if your PHP installation satisfies Yii's requirements by using one of the following approaches:

Use a browser to access the URL http://localhost/basic/requirements.php
Run the following commands:
```
cd basic
php requirements.php
```

You should configure your PHP installation so that it meets the minimum requirement of Yii.

Yii has been tested with the Apache HTTP server and Nginx HTTP server on both Windows and Linux. It requires PHP 5.4 or above. And you should install the PDO PHP Extension and a corresponding database driver (such as pdo_mysql for MySQL databases), if your application needs a database.

Adjusting Document Root

The above installation is fine in a development environment which can only be accessed from the local machine or the local network.

In a production environment, you should configure the Web server by pointing its document root to the basic/web folder. This is necessary because besides Web accessible files under the basic/web folder, the basic folder also contains your application code and/or sensitive data files that you do not want to expose to the Web. After the adjustment, you should be able to access the installed application via URL:

http://localhost/index.php

If you plan to deploy your application to a shared hosting environment and you do not have the permission to modify its Web server setting, please refer to the Shared Hosting Environment section on how to adjust your application.

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