php composer open_basedir restriction, how do I set the home paths? - php

Question

I have installed php and composer on a Windows Vista 64 machine. I am having a devil of a time getting Composer to accept a directive to use a specified directory other than the default C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Composer.
I tried to set up a config.json file viz:
{
"config": {
"COMPOSER_HOME": "c:\inetpub\wwwroot\PHPcomposer\",
"COMPOSER_CACHE_DIR": "c:\inetpub\wwwroot\PHPcomposer\"
}
}
and this was completely ignored. even added cache-dir for fun.
I tried altering the composer.json viz:
{
"require": {
"symfony/validator": "2.1.*",
"doctrine/dbal": "2.2.*",
"monolog/monolog": "dev-master",
"jtreminio/test-extensions": "dev-master"
},
"minimum-stability": "dev",
"config": {
"COMPOSER_HOME": "c:/inetpub/wwwroot/PHPcomposer/",
"cache-dir": "c:/inetpub/wwwroot/PHPcomposer/",
"COMPOSER_CACHE_DIR": "c:/inetpub/wwwroot/PHPcomposer/"
}
}
and still I am getting an open_basedir restriction in effect message referring to
C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Composer
I also did a iisreset, just in case iis was caching stuff.
So, any clues as to where I am going wrong. I know I can alter php.ini, but that to me is violating the security that php is offering. I would prefer to tell Composer to behave and do what I tell it to do.
Here is the command line I used and the result of it, the same error occurs regardless of any settings in config.phar or the "config" section in composer.phar. The php.ini has open_basedir = "C:\inetpub\wwwroot":
C:\inetpub\wwwroot\PHPcomposer>composer install
[ErrorException]
file_exists(): open_basedir restriction in effect.
File(C:/Users/Stuart/AppData/Roaming/Composer/.htaccess) is not
within the allowed path(s): (C:\inetpub\wwwroot)
install [--prefer-source] [--prefer-dist] [--dry-run] [--dev] [--no-dev]
[--no-plugins] [--no-custom-installers] [--no-scripts] [--no-progress]
[-v|vv|vvv|--verbose] [-o|--optimize-autoloader]

Answer 1

You need to Create a directory c:\pathTo\composer and download composer.phar into it from here
Then setup COMPOSER_HOME and COMPOSER_CACHE_DIR before running php, in a batch file:
composer.bat
#ECHO off
SET cwd=%cd%
PUSHD "c:\pathTo\php-5.4.28"
SET COMPOSER_HOME=c:\pathTo\composer
SET COMPOSER_CACHE_DIR=c:\pathTo\composer
"c:\pathTo\php-5.4.28\php.exe" -c "c:\pathTo\phpIniDir" -ddisable_functions="" -ddisable_classes="" -n "c:\pathTo\composer\composer.phar" --working-dir="%cwd%" %*
POPD