Composer is a package manager for PHP that allows us to manage the dependencies for the various vendor packages we utilize in Snipe-IT. Vendor packages are PHP libraries that someone else wrote, and that we use in Snipe-IT to help make it awesome.

These are not the same thing as the system requirements, which are technologies that the server itself needs in order to run Snipe-IT (such as a database, etc).

For this next step, you'll need an SSH client (such as Terminal.app for Mac or Putty or MobaXterm for Windows).

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IMPORTANT:
Never run composer as a super-user or Administrator. Always run it as the user that owns the Snipe-IT files. Running composer as a super-user will break things in ways that will be difficult to debug later. Just don't do it

Linux / OSX

It is not required to install composer globally, however if you wish to, you can find instructions on how to do so on the Composer website.

# Install the composer binary and run composer to install dependencies

cd <install-dir>

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

php composer.phar install --no-dev --prefer-source

For global composer installations

# Install the composer binary and run composer to install dependencies

cd <install-dir>

composer install --no-dev --prefer-source

Windows

Download Composer-Setup.exe from the Composer website.
Move the Composer-Setup.exe file to C:\inetpub\wwwroot\snipe-it
Open C:\inetpub\wwwroot\snipe-it in Windows Explorer
Double-Click on Composer-Setup.exe to install it
Open up a cmd window and run 'cd C:\inetpub\wwwroot\snipe-it'
Type 'composer install' and run it. This will install the dependencies.