SymphonyCMS - hpaluch/hpaluch.github.io GitHub Wiki

Symphony CMS

Symphony CMS is venerable PHP based CMS using XML and XSLT transformations. I played briefly with it around 2012 and find it interesting.

[!IMPORTANT] Please be aware that XSLT is functional programming language. It means that practically every problem is solved using recursion(!). I fought XSLT many years before I found ways how to solve tasks in XSLT way.

Homepage: https://www.getsymphony.com

Default example (project "workspace") includes blog with RSS and other nice features.

Symphony also offers Admin Web interface for Content. Below is shown published content - Article on Home:

Symphony Home content

And here coresponding Admin UI:

Symphony Edit

Setup with PHP 7.x

[!CAUTION] As pointed on https://github.com/symphonycms/symphonycms source - Symphony requires PHP 7.x! It is incompatible with PHP 8.x (for example in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS+).

I will use AlmaLinux 8, that provides both PHP 7.x and PHP 8.x

Setup - AlmaLinux 8

AlmaLinux < 9 should be used to have PHP 7.x, tested AlmaLinux 8.10 (Cerulean Leopard).

[!WARNING] Please disable SElinux to avoid issues.

edit /etc/default/grub and append selinux=0 to line with GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX variable

regenerate grub.cfg with sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

also set SELINUX=disabled in /etc/sysconfig/selinux

reboot system sudo reboot

[!WARNING] According to: https://docs.redhat.com/en/documentation/red_hat_enterprise_linux/8/html-single/8.3_release_notes/index#known-issue_security

Disabling SELinux using the SELINUX=disabled option in the /etc/selinux/config results in a process in which the kernel boots with SELinux enabled and switches to disabled mode later in the boot process. This might cause memory leaks.

So you should always use selinux=0 boot parameter.

Install requirements from https://www.getsymphony.com/learn/tutorials/view/install-symphony/1/

# tools, binutils contains strings, net-tools contains netstat
sudo dnf install net-tools unzip bash-completion binutils tcpdump
# php + apache
sudo dnf install httpd php php-gd php-zip php-xml php-mysqlnd php-json
sudo dnf install mysql-server

[!WARNING] Double-check that you have PHP 7.x (only supported major version):
$ rpm -q php

php-7.2.24-1.module_el8.3.0+2010+7c76a223.x86_64

Prepare database:

sudo systemctl enable --now mysqld
sudo mysql -e 'CREATE DATABASE symphony CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;'
# This syntax is required for MySQL 8+:
# NOTE: replace "password" with your password...
sudo mysql -e "CREATE USER 'symphony'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';"
# grant below is required to avoid error:
# - Access denied; you need (at least one of) the SUPER, SYSTEM_VARIABLES_ADMIN or SESSION_VARIABLES_ADMIN privilege(s) for this operation
# NOTE: It is *not* possible to use: ON symphony.* for this privilege:
sudo mysql -e "GRANT SESSION_VARIABLES_ADMIN ON *.* TO 'symphony'@'localhost'"
sudo mysql -e "grant all privileges on symphony.* to 'symphony'@'localhost';"
sudo mysql -e 'flush privileges;'

Verify that you can locally login to mysql as user symphony:

mysql -u symphony -p symphony
# will be prompted for password
mysql> quit

To setup Symphony we have to follow: https://www.getsymphony.com/learn/tutorials/view/install-symphony/3/

but please note that https://www.getsymphony.com/download/releases/current/ is walled by CloudFlare and not accessible without JavaScript (curl or wget will fail with 403 Forbidden error, while JS enabled browsers will pass)
fortunately we can download directly from GitHub.com

So we will install from Git:

based on https://www.getsymphony.com/learn/tutorials/view/install-symphony/3/

[!WARNING]

Avoid temptation to download release directly from https://github.com/symphonycms/symphonycms/tags

It is "broken" because it does not contain required extensions (these are defined as submodules of this project)

I burned myself badly - it caused late crash under http://IP_OF_YOUR_WEBSERVER/symphony/publish/articles/

# change owner to this unprivileged user that will manage git
sudo chown `id -un`:`id -gn` /var/www/html
git clone -b lts-bundle https://github.com/symphonycms/symphonycms.git /var/www/html

# required workaround because github.com no longer supports obsolete Git protocol
git config --global url.https://github.com/.insteadOf git://github.com/
cd /var/www/html
git submodule update --init --recursive
git clone git://github.com/symphonycms/workspace.git
# temporary relaxed permissions for installation stage
chmod 777 symphony .
chmod -R 777 workspace

Now relax Override permissions for Apache (Symphony will create /var/www/html/.htaccess with advanced configuration that requires oerrides:

Now enable and start Apache web server using:

sudo systemctl enable --now httpd
# enable access in Firewalld:
sudo firewall-cmd --add-service=http --permanent
sudo firewall-cmd --reload
sudo firewall-cmd --set-log-denied=unicast

We can continue installation following https://www.getsymphony.com/learn/tutorials/view/install-symphony/5/#pagehead

point your browser to: http://IP_OF_YOUR_WEBSERVER/install/

Ooops, encountered issue while connecting to mysql:

Symphony was unable to connect to the specified database.

first ensure that you use 127.0.0.1 as database Hostname. Default is localhost which is problem, because AlmaLinux aliases localhost for both IPv4 and IPv6 address.
next reload page - there will appear same error but for different reason:

tcpdump revealed this strange error:

SELECT SQL_CACHE VERSION() AS `version`;
#42000You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server
      version for the right syntax to use near '() AS `version`' at line 1

already reported here: https://github.com/symphonycms/symphonycms/issues/2909

comment out both lines:

//                $query = preg_replace('/^SELECT\s+/i', 'SELECT SQL_CACHE ', $query);
          } else {
//                $query = preg_replace('/^SELECT\s+/i', 'SELECT SQL_NO_CACHE ', $query);

in file /var/www/html/symphony/lib/toolkit/class.mysql.php

and reload page
this finish installation without other issues

[!WARNING] Error handling page may be broken and it may throw this on error:

Use of undefined constant SYMPHONY_URL - assumed 'SYMPHONY_URL' (this will throw an Error in a future version of PHP) on 338 of file /var/www/html/symphony/lib/core/class.errorhandler.php

if you encounter this issue try to apply following patch (not replacing URL on error page is less evil than crash:

diff -ur home/ansible/symphonycms-2.7.10/symphony/lib/core/class.errorhandler.php var/www/html/symphony/lib/core/class.errorhandler.php
--- home/ansible/symphonycms-2.7.10/symphony/lib/core/class.errorhandler.php	2019-04-08 21:40:50.000000000 +0200
+++ var/www/html/symphony/lib/core/class.errorhandler.php	2024-12-14 17:59:36.242000000 +0100
@@ -335,7 +335,9 @@
         );
 
         $html = str_replace('{ASSETS_URL}', ASSETS_URL, $html);
-        $html = str_replace('{SYMPHONY_URL}', SYMPHONY_URL, $html);
+	if (defined('SYMPHONY_URL')){
+           $html = str_replace('{SYMPHONY_URL}', SYMPHONY_URL, $html);
+	}
         $html = str_replace('{URL}', URL, $html);
 
         return $html;
diff -ur home/ansible/symphonycms-2.7.10/symphony/lib/core/class.symphony.php var/www/html/symphony/lib/core/class.symphony.php
--- home/ansible/symphonycms-2.7.10/symphony/lib/core/class.symphony.php	2019-04-08 21:40:50.000000000 +0200
+++ var/www/html/symphony/lib/core/class.symphony.php	2024-12-14 18:02:20.251000000 +0100
@@ -987,7 +987,9 @@
         );
 
         $html = str_replace('{ASSETS_URL}', ASSETS_URL, $html);
-        $html = str_replace('{SYMPHONY_URL}', SYMPHONY_URL, $html);
+	if (defined('SYMPHONY_URL')){
+            $html = str_replace('{SYMPHONY_URL}', SYMPHONY_URL, $html);
+	}
         $html = str_replace('{URL}', URL, $html);
 
         return $html;

now it should be possible to finish install, but ...

There is another problem - URL: http://IP_OF_YOUR_WEBSERVER/symphony/ will show just contents of directory. We have to enable mod_rewrite in .htaccess by changing this file:

diff -u etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf{.orig,}
--- etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf.orig	2024-12-14 18:18:53.142000000 +0100
+++ etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf	2024-12-14 18:46:55.472000000 +0100
@@ -151,7 +151,7 @@
     # It can be "All", "None", or any combination of the keywords:
     #   Options FileInfo AuthConfig Limit
     #
-    AllowOverride None
+    AllowOverride All
 
     #
     # Controls who can get stuff from this server.

note: Options are required for mod_rewrite instructions in /var/www/html/.htaccess and basically all other options are needed to avoid 500 Internal Error
and restarting Apache with systemctl restart httpd

We should do cleanup following: https://www.getsymphony.com/learn/tutorials/view/install-symphony/end/

sudo rm -rf /var/www/html/install/
cd /var/www/html
sudo chmod 755 symphony .
sudo chmod -R 775 manifest
sudo chmod -R 775 workspace

Now it should appear to work on http://IP_OF_YOUR_WEBSERVER/symphony/,

Please try also article list on http://IP_OF_YOUR_WEBSERVER/symphony/publish/articles/ to ensure that CMS really works correctly (no error)

Congratulations! Now you should be able to use Symphony CMS

tip: to see pages as end user try: http://IP_OF_YOUR_WEBSERVER/home/
you can find list of defined pages on admin interface under http://IP_OF_YOUR_WEBSERVER/symphony/blueprints/pages/
note: in the past it was possible to directly edit XSLT templates in web UI (see https://www.getsymphony.com/learn/concepts/view/page-templates/) however in my installation there is longer clickable link. One can still edit these templates on disk under /var/www/thml/workspace/pages/.

Setup - Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

[!WARNING] Abandoned variant - because Symphony is known to be incompatible with PHP 8.x - maybe I will resume work on this topic later...

Please see old revision: https://github.com/hpaluch/hpaluch.github.io/wiki/SymphonyCMS/c4ae17690dfcc5e2476426e79ac824df329a99a1 for original content.