How to Install and Configure Laravel in Ubuntu (with Nginx)

Introduction

Laravel is a powerful MVC PHP framework, designed for developers who need a simple and elegant toolkit to create full-featured web applications. In this tutorial, we’ll walk you through installing and configuring Laravel on an Ubuntu system. We’ll cover everything from prerequisites to running a Laravel application.

Before getting started, make sure you have the following ready:

• An Ubuntu server
• Non-root user with sudo privileges
• PHP version 7.3 or higher, including necessary extensions
• Composer, the PHP dependency manager
• MySQL or another database system (optional)

The Steps

Step 1: Install PHP and Extensions

sudo apt update
sudo apt install php php-cli php-mbstring php-xml php-zip php-gd php-json php-pdo

Verify the installation of PHP and its version once all packages are installed:

php -v

Step 2: Install Composer

How to download and install Composer globally:

php -r "copy('https://getcomposer.org/installer', 'composer-setup.php');"
php composer-setup.php --install-dir=/usr/local/bin --filename=composer
php -r "unlink('composer-setup.php');"

Verify the installation of Composer:

composer

Step 3: Install Laravel

Create a new Laravel project using Composer:

composer create-project --prefer-dist laravel/laravel myLaravelApp

Set the correct permissions for the project:

cd myLaravelApp
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data storage bootstrap/cache
sudo chmod -R 775 storage bootstrap/cache

Step 4: Set Up a Web Server

Installing and configuring Nginx:

sudo apt install nginx

Create a new configuration file for your Laravel application.

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/myLaravelApp

Include the following server block information:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name example.com;
    root /path/to/your/myLaravelApp/public;

    add_header X-Frame-Options "SAMEORIGIN";
    add_header X-XSS-Protection "1; mode=block";
    add_header X-Content-Type-Options "nosniff";

    index index.php;

    charset utf-8;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string;
    }

    location ~ \.php$ {
        include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
        fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        include fastcgi_params;
    }

    location ~ /\.ht {
        deny all;
    }
}

Enable the site by creating a symbolic link:

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/myLaravelApp /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

Step 5: Set Up the Environment File

Edit the .env file in your Laravel project to set up your database and other environment variables:

sudo nano .env

Adjust the following lines with your actual database credentials:

DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=laravel
DB_USERNAME=laravel_user
DB_PASSWORD=your_password

If you’re using a different database or connection, make sure to install the corresponding PHP extension for it.

Step 6: Run Migrations

After configuring your database information, you can run migrations to set up default tables:

php artisan migrate

Step 7: Run the Laravel Application

Finally, restart your Nginx server to implement the changes:

sudo systemctl restart nginx

You should now be able to access your Laravel application in your web browser:

http://example.com

If you need to run your Laravel app in development without a full web server, you can use Artisan:

php artisan serve

This will start Laravel’s built-in development server at http://localhost:8000.

Conclusion

Installing Laravel on Ubuntu is a straightforward process that sets the stage for development of high-quality PHP applications. With the power of Laravel at your fingertips, you can harness the capabilities of this sophisticated framework to build elegant and feature-rich web applications.