Using any cloud hosting provider—Linode, Vultr, DigitalOcean, etc.—this cheatsheet offers detailed instructions on how to deploy and configure a Laravel application on an Ubuntu OS running an LEMP stack.

• Any cloud hosting account that you can create Compute VPS Instance
• Amazon Webservice account with a created EC2 VPS instance (Ubuntu 20 or later is much recommended).
• Linode account with a created virtual server (Ubuntu 20 or later is much recommended).
• DigitalOcean account with a created VPS instance (Ubuntu 20 or later is much recommended).
• Knowledge on Basic server administration.
• Git installed on your local machine.
• A Laravel application hosted on GitHub (e.g., "laravel_yourapp").

• Example we have an application called "laravel_yourapp". Change the "laravel_yourapp" for your website/domain name or Laravel app name.

1. Create a VPS instance:

   • Choose Ubuntu 20.04 as the operating system.
   • Follow the wizard to create the VPS instance.

2. Access Your VPS instance:

   • Open your terminal and use SSH to access your VPS instance:

     ssh root@your_VPS instance_ip

3. Update Server Packages:

   sudo apt update
   sudo apt upgrade -y # optional
   

4. Install NGINX Web Server

   sudo apt install nginx
   
   # Start NGINX and Enable it.
   sudo systemctl start nginx
   sudo systemctl enable nginx
   
   # Check if NGINX status is running
   sudo systemctl status nginx
   

5. Install MySQL:

   sudo apt install mysql-server
   sudo mysql_secure_installation # modify some insecure defaults
   

6. Change root mysql password:

   sudo mysql
   ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'your_password';
   mysql -u root -p # Access mysql
   

7. Install PHP and Required Extensions:

   • To Download Other Versions of PHP

     sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php

   • Latest Version

   sudo apt install php php-fpm php-mysql php-common php-bcmath php-ctype php-json php-mbstring php-openssl php-pdo php-tokenizer php-xml php-zip php-gd

   • If you want specific version of PHP like 7.4

   sudo apt install php7.4 php7.4-fpm php7.4-mysql php7.4-common php7.4-bcmath php7.4-ctype php7.4-json php7.4-mbstring php7.4-openssl php7.4-pdo php7.4-tokenizer php7.4-xml php7.4-zip php7.4-gd

8. Configure Nginx for Laravel:

   • Create an Nginx server block configuration for your Laravel app (e.g., /etc/nginx/sites-available/laravel_yourapp).
   • Configure the Nginx server block to use PHP-FPM for processing PHP files.

9. Create server block config

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

   # NGINX CONFIG FOR LARAVEL [https://laravel.com/docs/7.x/deployment]
   server {
      listen 80;
      server_name your_VPS instance_ip;
      root /var/www/laravel_yourapp/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 = /favicon.ico { access_log off; log_not_found off; }
      location = /robots.txt  { access_log off; log_not_found off; }
   
      error_page 404 /index.php;
   
      location ~ \.php$ {
          fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock;
          fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $realpath_root$fastcgi_script_name;
          include fastcgi_params;
      }
   
      location ~ /\.(?!well-known).* {
          deny all;
      }
   }

   # From Digital Ocean Snippets [https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-linux-nginx-mysql-php-lemp-stack-ubuntu-18-04]
   
   server {
       listen 80;
       root /var/www/html;
       index index.php index.html index.htm index.nginx-debian.html;
       server_name your_domain;
   
       location / {
               try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
       }
   
       location ~ \.php$ {
               include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
               fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.2-fpm.sock;
       }
   
       location ~ /\.ht {
               deny all;
       }
     }

10. Enable the Nginx Configuration:

    • Create a symbolic link to enable the site:

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

    • Unlink the default conf

    sudo unlink /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default
    
    

11. Test Nginx Configuration:

    nginx -t
    

1. Clone Your Laravel App from GitHub:

   git clone https://github.com/yourusername/laravel_yourapp.git /var/www/laravel_yourapp
   

2. Install Composer

   • https://getcomposer.org/download/

3. Install Composer Dependencies

   cd /var/www/laravel_yourapp
   composer install --no-interaction --prefer-dist
   

4. Generate Laravel Application Key:

   php artisan key:generate
   

5. Set Permissions:

   • Ensure proper file permissions for Laravel Application

   sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/laravel_yourapp
   sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/laravel_yourapp/storage
   
   

6. Access MySQL:

   mysql -u root -p
   

7. Create a database and user:

   CREATE DATABASE laravel_yourapp_db;
   CREATE USER 'laravel_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'your_password';
   GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON laravel_yourapp_db.* TO 'laravel_user'@'localhost';
   FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
   

8. EXIT MYSQL

   exit
   

9. Configure .env

   • Update the Database Configuration

   cd /var/www/laravel_yourapp
   nano .env
   
   

10. Migrate and Seed Database (Laravel):

    php artisan migrate --seed
    

1. Reload NGINX

   systemctl reload nginx
   

2. Restart PHP-FPM

   systemctl restart php7.4-fpm