How to deploy a Laravel project to a Linux server?

@adolf 

To deploy a Laravel project to a Linux server, you can follow these steps:

1. Prepare the Linux server: Choose a Linux distribution (e.g., Ubuntu, CentOS) and install it on your server. Ensure the server has PHP, MySQL, and other dependencies required by Laravel. You can install them using package managers like apt or yum.
2. Set up a web server: Install a web server like Apache or Nginx on the Linux server. Configure the web server to serve your Laravel project: For Apache, create a new virtual host and point it to the public directory of your Laravel project. For Nginx, create a new server block and configure it to serve the index.php file inside your Laravel project's public directory.
3. Transfer the Laravel project to the server: Zip your Laravel project on your local machine or use version control tools like Git to clone it on the server. Transfer the project files to the Linux server using FTP, SCP, or any other file transfer method.
4. Configure the Laravel project: On the server, navigate to your Laravel project's root directory. Rename the .env.example file to .env and configure the necessary settings such as database connection details.
5. Install Composer dependencies: Install Composer on the server if not already installed. Run composer install on the command line in your Laravel project's directory to install the project dependencies defined in composer.json.
6. Generate Laravel app key: Run php artisan key:generate on the command line in your Laravel project's directory. This command generates a unique key for encrypting cookies and other sensitive data.
7. Set file permissions: Ensure that the appropriate file permissions are set on the server for Laravel to function properly. Typically, you will need to set write permissions on storage directories using commands like chmod or chown.
8. Restart the web server: Restart the web server to apply the changes and make your Laravel project live.

That's it! Your Laravel project should now be deployed and accessible on your Linux server.

@adolf 

If your Laravel project is already on a version control system (such as Git), you can also follow these steps to deploy it to a Linux server more efficiently:

1. SSH into your Linux server: Use an SSH client such as PuTTY (for Windows) or the Terminal (for macOS/Linux) to connect to your server.
2. Pull the latest changes from your Git repository: Navigate to the directory where you want to deploy your Laravel project on the server. Use the git clone command to clone your project repository if it is not already on the server. Use the git pull origin master command to pull the latest changes from your repository.
3. Install Composer dependencies: Run composer install in the root directory of your Laravel project to install the required dependencies.
4. Set up environment variables: Copy the .env.example file and rename it to .env. Update the database and other configuration settings in the .env file.
5. Generate an application key: Run php artisan key:generate to generate a new application key.
6. Set file permissions: Ensure that storage and bootstrap/cache directories have the correct permissions. You can use commands like chmod to set the permissions.
7. Configure the web server: Set up the web server configuration to point to the public directory of your Laravel project. For Apache, you may need to set the DocumentRoot to the public directory. For Nginx, update the server block configuration to point to the index.php file in the public directory.
8. Restart the web server: Restart your web server to apply the changes made to the configuration. For Apache, you can use sudo systemctl restart apache2. For Nginx, you can use sudo systemctl restart nginx.

Your Laravel project should now be deployed and accessible on your Linux server. You can visit the server's IP address or domain name in a web browser to access your Laravel application.