Keeping your system up-to-date is important to make sure it is running optimally and securely. The update mechanism in eZ software is using the de facto standard PHP packaging system called Composer. 

This makes it easy to adapt package installs and updates to your workflow, allowing you to test new/updated packages in a development environment, place the changes in your version control system (git, Subversion, Mercurial, etc.), pull in those changes to a staging environment and, when approved, put them in production.

Installing Composer

Composer is a command-line tool, so the main way to install it is via command line from inside the root directory of the (eZ) software:

By doing it this way you will need to execute further Composer commands using php composer.phar. If you'd rather prefer to install Composer globally on your machine instead of inside each and every project that uses it, then follow these instructions in online Composer documentation.

Prerequisite to using composer with eZ Enterprise software

Setting up Authentication tokens for access to commercial updates

Out of the box Composer uses a packaging repository called packagist.org to find all open-source packages and their updates. Additional commercial packages are available for eZ Enterprise subscribers at updates.ez.no/bul/ (which is password-protected, you will need to set up authentication tokens as described below to get access).

To get access to these updates log in to your service portal on support.ez.no and look for the following on the "Maintenance and Support agreement details" screen:

1. Click "Create token" (This requires the "Portal administrator" access level.)
2. Fill in a label describing the use of the token. This will allow you to revoke access later.
   
   • Example, if you need to provide access to updates to a third party, a good example would be "53-upgrade-project-by-partner-x"
3. Copy the password, you will not get access to it again!

After this, when running Composer to get updates as described below, you will be asked for a Username and Password. Use:

• as Username – your Installation key found above on the "Maintenance and Support agreement details" page in the service portal
• as Password – the token password you retrieved in step 3.

Optional: Save authentication information in auth.json to avoid repeatedly typing it

Composer will ask to do this for you on updates, however if it is disabled, you can create an auth.json file manually in one of the following ways:

Option A: Store your credentials in the project directory:

Option B: If you'd rather want to install it globally in COMPOSER_HOME directory for machine-wide use:

Update workflow Using Composer

This section describes the best practice for using Composer, essentially it suggests treating updates like other code/configuration/* changes on your project, tackling them on a development machine before staging them for rollout on staging/production.  

1. Running composer update and version changes in development

Updating eZ software via Composer is nothing different then updating other projects via Composer, but for illustration here is how you update your project locally:

At this stage you might need to manually clear Symfony's prod environment class cache (cached interfaces and lazy services) in case the classes/interfaces in it have changed. This can be done in the following way:

When the update has completed and local install is verified to work, make sure to version changes done to the composer.lock file (if you use a version control system like git). This file contains all details of which versions are currently used and makes sure the same version is used among all developers, staging and eventually production when current changes are approved for production (assuming you have a workflow for this).

2. Installing versioned updates on other development machines and/or staging -> production

Installing eZ software packages via Composer is nothing different then installing vanilla packages via Composer, and for illustration here is how you install versioned updates:

General notes on use of Composer

Installing additional packages via Composer

Requiring eZ software packages via Composer is also done in same way as requiring vanilla packages via Composer, and for illustration here is how you install the community-developed EzPriceBundle:

Dumping autoload for better performance

For PHP 5.6 and up you'll get a notable performance improvement by making composer dump optimized autoload array, this can be done on composer install and update, but also using:

php -d memory_limit=-1 composer.phar dump-autoload --optimize

Best practice for Bundles

Best practice for Bundles is described in Symfony documentation under Best Practices for Reusable Bundles, with eZ bundles there is some notable exceptions:

Documentation

• You may write your documentation using markdown (.md) if you prefer, however .rst is recommended if you plan to use writethedocs.org, as heavily used by many open source projects.

Git repository naming

• You may omit vendor name in repository naming, assuming vendor name is reflected in organization / user account it is attached to.
• You may also choose to follow composer package naming on repository name which is more relevant when trying to find a given package later.

Composer Metadata

• For defining "type", the following are at the moment known valid values:
  • ezplatform-bundle | Symfony bundles that uses eZ Platform features
  • ezstudio-bundle | Symfony bundles that uses eZ Platform Enterprise Edition features
    
  • symfony-bundle | Standard symfony bundles as described in Symfony doc.
• For eZ Publish (legacy) and eZ Publish Platform there where also:
  • ezpublish-legacy-extension | For standalone 4.x (legacy) extensions, to be used with ezpublish-legacy-installer
  • ezpublish-bundle | For eZ Publish Platform 5.x bundles, may optionally be a "legacy bundle".