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Run Laravel locally on Ubuntu using Apache virtual host

#laravel #apache #ubuntu #php

Refresh APT metadata.

sudo apt update
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Installing MySQL

Install MySQL:

sudo apt install mysql-server
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Enter MySQL to edit the root user password:

sudo mysql
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ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'password';
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Re-enter MySQL to create a database for our app, but using the credentials this time:

mysql -u root -p
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CREATE DATABASE my_app;
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References:

Installing Apache

Ubuntu usually comes bundled with a running Apache server but still, I'll include the installation steps.

sudo apt-get install apache2 -y
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Check if Apache is installed by verifying its version:

apache2ctl -v
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Check if your firewall is active:

sudo ufw status
sudo ufw app list
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If it returned Status: active then allow HTTP traffic on Apache:

sudo ufw allow in "Apache"
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Now, visiting http://localhost should display "Apache2 Default Page".

References:

Installing PHP

Register the following repo that enables the installation of multiple PHP versions at once.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php
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Install PHP 8.1.

sudo apt install php8.1
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If you opt for a different version then just replace 8.1 with your version whenever you copy a command.

Add PHP module to Apache server:

sudo apt install libapache2-mod-php8.1
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Install the extensions required by Laravel:

sudo apt install php8.1-mbstring php8.1-xmlrpc php8.1-soap php8.1-gd php8.1-xml php8.1-cli php8.1-zip php8.1-bcmath php8.1-tokenizer php8.1-json php8.1-pear
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The newly installed extensions will be automatically enabled with their configs placed at /etc/php/8.1/cli/conf.d/.

References:

Installing composer

Check https://getcomposer.org/download/.

A new Laravel app 

cd
mkdir dev
cd dev
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I like to place my code at ~/dev.

Create a new Laravel app:

composer global require laravel/installer
laravel new my_app --git
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Set the correct permissions to enable Apache to execute your PHP code.

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /home/me/dev/my_app
sudo chmod -R 777 /home/me/dev/my_app
sudo chmod o+x /home/me
sudo chmod o+x /home/me/dev
sudo chmod o+x /home/me/dev/
sudo chmod o+x /home/me/dev/my_app
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Set .env with your app and database details.

Faking a domain name

We will add a domain name for our app that only our machine knows about by editing /etc/hosts. We will configure it to let our machine know that the domain name my_app.local is on the loopback IP address 127.0.0.1.

nano /etc/hosts
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# Add this line anywhere
127.0.0.1 my_app.local
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Test that you configured the domain correctly by pinging it:

ping my_app.local
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Note that using internet top-level domains like .com will most likely not work. So I recommend sticking to .local for testing locally without HTTPS and without a registered domain name.

Setting up the virtual host

Now we move to /etc/apache2/sites-available/ and use as our base virtual host config file:

cd /etc/apache2/sites-available/
sudo cp 000-default.conf my_app-local.conf
nano my_app-local.conf
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And edit my_app-local.conf to look like this:

<VirtualHost *:80>
        # The ServerName directive sets the request scheme, hostname and port that
        # the server uses to identify itself. This is used when creating
        # redirection URLs. In the context of virtual hosts, the ServerName
        # specifies what hostname must appear in the request's Host: header to
        # match this virtual host. For the default virtual host (this file) this
        # value is not decisive as it is used as a last resort host regardless.
        # However, you must set it for any further virtual host explicitly.
        ServerName my_app.local   
        ServerAlias www.my_app.local

        ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
        DocumentRoot /home/me/dev/my_app/public

        <Directory /home/me/dev/my_app/public>
                Options FollowSymLinks MultiViews
                AllowOverride All
                Require all granted
        </Directory>

        ReWriteEngine On

        # Available loglevels: trace8, ..., trace1, debug, info, notice, warn,
        # error, crit, alert, emerg.
        # It is also possible to configure the loglevel for particular
        # modules, e.g.
        #LogLevel info ssl:warn

        ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
        CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

        # For most configuration files from conf-available/, which are
        # enabled or disabled at a global level, it is possible to
        # include a line for only one particular virtual host. For example the
        # following line enables the CGI configuration for this host only
        # after it has been globally disabled with "a2disconf".
        #Include conf-available/serve-cgi-bin.conf
</VirtualHost>
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Check the validity of the config you added:

sudo apache2ctl configtest
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Enable your new site:

sudo a2ensite my_app-local.conf
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Also, enable the rewrite module to be able to have URLs that do not point only to real files:

sudo a2enmod rewrite
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The final thing to do is restart Apache to reload the new config:

sudo systemctl restart apache2
// or
sudo systemctl reload apache2
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References:

Finally

Visit http://my_app.local.

Top comments (4)

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ghulam_hyderghaloo_c8002 profile image
Ghulam Hyder Ghaloo •

Running Laravel locally on Ubuntu using an Apache virtual host involves several steps. First, install Apache, PHP, and MySQL. Next, configure Apache to serve your Laravel project by creating a virtual host file. Enable the site and restart Apache. Finally, update your hosts file to point to your Laravel project's local domain. To promote this knowledge, distribute promotional pens branded with your company's logo and a link to a detailed setup guide.

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medilies profile image
medilies •

For dev purposes:

  • If you want to connect to MySQL from any machine do sudo nano /etc/mysql/mysql.conf.d/mysqld.cnf and set bind-address = 0.0.0.0.

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