How to Install PHP Composer on Debian 10/9/8

The PHP Composer is a package management tool. It removes the hassle of maintaining PHP packages for an application manually. You can easily install all the required packages using Composer. It maintains a list of required packages in a JSON file called composer.json.

This tutorial helps you to install and configure PHP composer on Debian 10 Buster, Debian 9 Stretch, and Debian 8 Jessie systems.

1. Prerequsities

• Shell access to a running Debian system with sudo privilege.
• PHP must be installed and configured, version 5.3 or higher.

2. Install Composer on Debian

You can download composer script from getcomposer.org website by running the following command. It will create a composer.phar file in the current directory.

curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php

Copy composer.phar file under bin directory to make available anywhere in the system. Also, set the execute permission on file. I have changed the filename from composer.phar to composer to easy use.

mv composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/composer

Type composer at the command prompt. This will provide you composer version details along with options available with composer command.

composer 

   ______
  / ____/___  ____ ___  ____  ____  ________  _____
 / /   / __ \/ __ `__ \/ __ \/ __ \/ ___/ _ \/ ___/
/ /___/ /_/ / / / / / / /_/ / /_/ (__  )  __/ /
\____/\____/_/ /_/ /_/ .___/\____/____/\___/_/
                    /_/
Composer version 1.8.5 2019-04-09 17:46:47

Usage:
  command [options] [arguments]

Options:
  -h, --help                     Display this help message
  -q, --quiet                    Do not output any message
  -V, --version                  Display this application version
      --ansi                     Force ANSI output
      --no-ansi                  Disable ANSI output

3. Upgrade PHP Composer

The composer has the ability to upgrade itself without downloading again. Simply run below command from the terminal to upgrade compose on Debian.

sudo composer self-update