Ask HN: Is there a simple installer file for PHP software? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Is there a simple installer file for PHP software?

2 pointsEGreg4 comments

If there is nothing like this, I'll probably write and release it for our software, but it could work for any software.

The background to this is that PHP powers 80% of web sites, and there is a huge number of commodity hosting solutions out there.

Basically, this would be a single PHP file that people would download and install on their favorite commodity host. Upon launch, it would

1. Look at some hardcoded index of https URLs

2. Download a zip file and check the signed hash

3. If the signatures check out (There would be a minimum # of signatures required) then unzip it

4. Change the file permissions and run installer

It would have a Web interface and a CLI interface.

I just haven't seen anything that's a single PHP file download. It seems like the easiest distribution model for commodity hosts which regular joes use.

You've described the setup instructions for Composer. Which once Composer is installed, it can be used to install packages globally.

https://getcomposer.org/download/

Composer isn't one file, and doesn't use zip format, or signed hashes as far as I know. The sources could be compromised, for instance. And it couldn't be 'simply installed' by an average joe

* Composer is one file. It's a .phar (as described by @az09mugen)

* I think in typical use, Composer is installing via Packagist.org, which is typically pointed at a GitHub repo, and it is the repo's zip file that is downloaded to your computer. You can look in composer.lock and see `"type": "zip"` throughout

* It definitely has some sort of hash verification in the PostFileDownloadEvent class. I've never used it to know if it would satisfy your need

Similarly, WP CLI is a .phar file which can then install additional packages. It's really just using Composer under the hood.

I don't think it fits exactly your requirements (for the GUI part), but the closest thing I know is the .phar files, for PHp ARchive. This basically bundles a whole project into a single file. It is used by composer also as written by BrianHenryIE. You can download the .phar file, drop it into your computer and run it with the command :

php file.phar

More info : https://www.php.net/manual/en/phar.using.intro.php

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