Deploy a Laravel app on a cloud server (Nginx, PHP 8.3, MySQL)

Steps

1. 1Install packages

   Ubuntu 24.04 ships PHP 8.3; install the extensions Laravel needs.

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   sudo apt update
   sudo apt install -y nginx mysql-server unzip git php8.3-fpm php8.3-cli php8.3-mysql php8.3-mbstring php8.3-xml php8.3-curl php8.3-zip php8.3-bcmath php8.3-intl

2. 2Install Composer

   Install the PHP dependency manager system-wide.

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   curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer -o composer-setup.php
   sudo php composer-setup.php --install-dir=/usr/local/bin --filename=composer
   rm composer-setup.php

3. 3Create the database

   Create a database and a user with rights only to it. Choose your own password.

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   sudo mysql -e "CREATE DATABASE app CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;"
   sudo mysql -e "CREATE USER 'app'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'BURAYA-GUCLU-BIR-PAROLA';"
   sudo mysql -e "GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON app.* TO 'app'@'localhost';"

4. 4Install the app

   Clone the repository, install dependencies, edit .env (DB_DATABASE, DB_USERNAME, DB_PASSWORD) and run migrations.

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   sudo mkdir -p /var/www/app && sudo chown $USER:$USER /var/www/app
   git clone https://github.com/KULLANICI/PROJE.git /var/www/app
   cd /var/www/app
   composer install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader
   cp .env.example .env && php artisan key:generate
   nano .env
   php artisan migrate --force
   sudo chown -R www-data:www-data storage bootstrap/cache

5. 5Nginx site

   The document root must be the public folder; hidden files are blocked.

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   sudo tee /etc/nginx/sites-available/app >/dev/null <<'EOF'
   server {
       listen 80;
       server_name example.com;
       root /var/www/app/public;
       index index.php;
       location / { try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string; }
       location ~ \.php$ {
           include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
           fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php8.3-fpm.sock;
       }
       location ~ /\.(?!well-known) { deny all; }
   }
   EOF
   sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/app /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
   sudo nginx -t && sudo systemctl reload nginx

6. 6Queue worker and scheduler

   The queue worker runs continuously under systemd, the scheduler fires every minute. For SSL, follow the certbot step from the Node.js guide.

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   sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/laravel-queue.service >/dev/null <<'EOF'
   [Unit]
   Description=Laravel queue worker
   After=network.target
   
   [Service]
   User=www-data
   WorkingDirectory=/var/www/app
   ExecStart=/usr/bin/php artisan queue:work --sleep=3 --tries=3 --max-time=3600
   Restart=always
   
   [Install]
   WantedBy=multi-user.target
   EOF
   sudo systemctl enable --now laravel-queue
   (sudo crontab -u www-data -l 2>/dev/null; echo "* * * * * cd /var/www/app && php artisan schedule:run >> /dev/null 2>&1") | sudo crontab -u www-data -

Updated: 2026-10-23