Let's deploy a Laravel app to a fresh Ubuntu server!

I'm using Laravel 11 and PHP 8.3.

This can be broken down into three stages:

1. Set up dependencies
2. Set up your project
3. Set up Nginx

Set up dependencies

Install required packages:

# Nginx and PHP
sudo apt install nginx php unzip

# Database (sqlite for now)
sudo apt install sqlite3

# Laravel dependencies
sudo apt install php-sqlite3 php-curl php-xml php-zip php-mbstring php-gd

# PHP-fpm -- NOTE: use your php version
sudo apt install php8.3-fpm
sudo systemctl start php8.3-fpm

# Composer
curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php
sudo mv composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/composer

Setup project

Clone your repository:

cd /var/www/html
git clone https://repo.sitory/name.git
cd repo

Set up the Laravel project:

cp .env.example .env
composer install

# Generate the application key
php artisan key:generate

# Setup the database
php artisan migrate

Open the .env file in vim and set these values:

APP_ENV=production
APP_URL=https://your.url

Install NPM:

sudo apt install npm
npm install

# NOTE: If `npm install` hangs, you may have to:
# 1. Ctrl+c to kill the job
# 2. Clear the cache with `npm cache clean --force`
# 3. Run `npm install` again

npm run build

Optimise the Laravel project:

php artisan optimize

Set up your user and file permissions:

# Add your user to the www-data group
sudo usermod -a -G www-data ubuntu

# Change owner to www-data (web server)
sudo chown -R $USER:www-data .

# Update file permissions
sudo find . -type f -exec chmod 664 {} \;
sudo find . -type d -exec chmod 775 {} \;

# Change permissions for Laravel to write to cache
sudo chgrp -R www-data storage bootstrap/cache
sudo chmod -R ug+rwx storage bootstrap/cache

Setup Nginx

If apache is running, disable it and prevent starting on boot:

sudo systemctl stop apache2

# Verify it is stopped
sudo systemctl status apache2

# Prevent starting automatically
sudo systemctl disable apache2

Set up the nginx config:

# Remove default nginx site
sudo rm /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default

# Create your nginx config -- see https://laravel.com/docs/12.x/deployment#nginx
# for a good starting point
sudo vi /etc/nginx/sites-available/mysite

# Link the config to 'enable' the site
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/mysite /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

# Test and start the nginx service
sudo nginx -t
sudo systemctl start nginx

Your site should now be available!