Improve documentation in "Configuring a Web Server"

[MichaelMackus]

I ran into an issue today where one of our LESS assets was not compiling correctly. The problem line was an @import line linking to the a component file (from our bundle's public folder).

This issue is easily fixed with adding a "FollowSymlinks" apache option to the root symfony application directory (not the web folder).

I think a simple note or just "Options FollowSymlinks" for the root symfony directory in the Web Server Configuration documentation would help here: http://symfony.com/doc/current/cookbook/configuration/web_server_configuration.html

I think this issue only applies to assets installed using symlinks (which seems relatively common). Also to note is this symfony app is inside a Vagrant VM.

[javiereguiluz]

@MichaelMackus thanks for reporting this issue!

I can take care of fixing this issue. But first I'd like to ask our doc managers (@wouterj @xabbuh and @weaverryan) if they think this is a common enough problem or if they think this is an exceptional issue. Thanks!

[xabbuh]

We could add the directive in comments and add a description above it explaining the problem described here.

[weaverryan]

Hi @MichaelMackus!

I think @xabbuh has the right suggestion. But, I don't think this has anything to do with LESS - it's more generic than that. If you're using assets:install --symlink, then don't you need this directive for those assets to be available? So, we should almost recommend this setting (unless someone can tell me I'm mistaken). But, it can be a security risk (imagine if you sym-linked to your root directory, or if an attacker managed to create that symink), so I'm not sure we can recommend it - in which case having it commented-out with some notes seems like the best option.

If I'm thinking wrong about any points here, please let me know :).

Thanks!

[MichaelMackus]

@weaverryan sounds about right... pretty sure its all assets installed with --symlink

The error doesn't seem to occur any more with puphet's default config. It did occur on the default config around the time I posted this issue (or perhaps it was a little older), so I think this is relevant to some people enough to warrant a note in the docs.

Security implications are definitely something to think about... but we might be able to limit this by adding it to a directory config specifically for the assets dir? I know personally I like to firewall my dev boxes fairly well, so we might even want a security specific section if it doesn't already exist.

Not really 100% sure (I'm not very good with docs ;)), but even if this issue is found via google or something, hopefully it helped at least one other person.

[weaverryan]

We've just merged in a PR related to this. Thanks @MichaelMackus for the original issue and conversation :).