How do I install Composer on a shared hosting?

Solution 1:

This tutorial worked for me, resolving my issues with /usr/local/bin permission issues and php-cli (which composer requires, and may aliased differently on shared hosting).

First run these commands to download and install composer:

cd ~
mkdir bin
mkdir bin/composer
curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php
mv composer.phar bin/composer

Determine the location of your php-cli (needed later on):

which php-cli

(If the above fails, use which php)

It should return the path, such as /usr/bin/php-cli, /usr/php/54/usr/bin/php-cli, etc.

edit ~/.bashrc and make sure this line is at the top, adding it if it is not:

[ -z "$PS1" ] && return

and then add this alias to the bottom (using the php-cli path that you determined earlier):

alias composer="/usr/bin/php-cli ~/bin/composer/composer.phar"

Finish with these commands:

source ~/.bashrc
composer --version

Solution 2:

It depends on the host, but you probably simply can't (you can't on my shared host on Rackspace Cloud Sites - I asked them).

What you can do is set up an environment on your dev machine that roughly matches your shared host, and do all of your management through the command line locally. Then when everything is set (you've pulled in all the dependencies, updated, managed with git, etc.) you can "push" that to your shared host over (s)FTP.

Solution 3:

I have successfully installed Composer (and Laravel) on my shared hosting with only FTP access:

1. Download and install PHPShell on a shared hosting

2. In PHPShell's config.php add a user and an alias:

   php = "php -d suhosin.executor.include.whitelist=phar"

3. Log in to PHPShell and type: curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php

4. When successfully installed, run Composer: php composer.phar