Setting Up Laravel Environment on Ubuntu

This guide will help you set up the necessary environment to run a Laravel application on an Ubuntu system.

So this document provides a step-by-step guide to set up Apache, PHP, MySQL/MariaDB, Composer, and phpMyAdmin for managing databases, while also ensuring MySQL root user password setup for a Laravel environment on Ubuntu.

Install Apache and PHP¶

• Install Apache

sudo apt update 
sudo apt install apache2

• Enable the Apache service and start it:

sudo systemctl enable apache2
sudo systemctl start apache2

• Install php

sudo apt install php php-cli php-common php-mbstring php-xml php-zip php-mysql php-pgsql php-sqlite3 php-json php-bcmath php-gd php-tokenizer php-xmlwriter

Check localhost in your browser to ensure Apache is running.

Install MariaDB/MySQL¶

• Install MariaDB MariaDB is an open-source relational database management system. Install it by running the following command:

sudo apt install mariadb-server

• Install MySQL

sudo mysql_secure_installation

• Enable and start MySQL:

sudo systemctl enable mysql
sudo systemctl start mysql
sudo systemctl status mysql

Install Composer¶

Composer is a dependency management tool for PHP. Install with the command below

sudo apt install composer

• here is an altenative

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

Install phpMyAdmin for Database Management¶

sudo apt update
sudo apt install phpmyadmin
sudo ln -s /etc/phpmyadmin/apache.conf /etc/apache2/conf-available/phpmyadmin.conf
sudo a2enconf phpmyadmin
sudo systemctl reload apache2

Access phpMyAdmin at http://localhost/phpmyadmin to manage your databases.

Configure MySQL Root User Password¶

because phpmyadmin refuse the passwordless login and also for security purposes

Modify the MySQL configuration file:

sudo nano /etc/mysql/mariadb.conf.d/50-server.cnf

In some setups or older versions, this file might exist as the main configuration file for the MySQL/MariaDB server

sudo nano /etc/mysql/mysql.conf.d/mysqld.cnf

Add the following line under the [mysqld] section:

skip-grant-tables

Restart MySQL in safe mode to update the config:

sudo systemctl stop mysql
sudo mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables --skip-networking &

If there's a process conflict, kill the processes and restart MySQL.

In another terminal:

mysql -u root -p

use mysql;
update user set authentication_string=PASSWORD("new_password") where User='root';
flush privileges;
quit;

Restart MySQL:

sudo systemctl stop mysql
sudo systemctl start mysql

Access phpMyAdmin at http://localhost/phpmyadmin and use the updated root password.

This environment should now be ready for running your Laravel application.

(Bonus) Create a New Laravel Project¶

Let's conclude this guide with a practical example by demonstrating how to create a new Laravel project using Composer.

So we will apply the newly configured environment by creating a new Laravel project and accessing it through a web browser

Now that you have set up your Laravel environment, let's create a new Laravel project using Composer.

Run the following command in your terminal:

composer create-project --prefer-dist laravel/laravel my-laravel-app

This command will create a new Laravel project named my-laravel-app in the current directory. Replace my-laravel-app with your preferred project name.

Navigate to the project directory:

cd my-laravel-app

Then, start the Laravel development server:

php artisan serve

Access your Laravel application by visiting http://localhost:8000 in your web browser. You should see the default Laravel welcome page, confirming that your new Laravel project is up and running!

Setup a laravel project: case of lavsms¶

Run XAMPP¶

XAMPP is used to provide a local server environment to run your Laravel application.

• Start the XAMPP GUI application.
• Launch the Apache web server and MySQL database server.

• Create a new database named lavsms using phpMyAdmin or another MySQL client.

  mysql -u your_username -p -e "CREATE DATABASE lavsms;"
  

Database Configuration¶

Configure the database settings for your Laravel application.

• Create an environment (.env) file by making a copy of the example file:

  cp .env.example .env
  

• Modify the database connection settings in the .env file to match your XAMPP setup:

  DB_DATABASE=lavsms
  DB_USERNAME=root
  DB_PASSWORD=
  

Install Project Dependencies¶

Install the necessary dependencies for your Laravel project.

# Navigate to the project directory
cd path/to/project

# Update Composer dependencies (if needed)
composer update

# Install Composer dependencies
composer install

# Install Node.js dependencies
npm install

Build¶

Perform necessary build steps for your Laravel application.

# Generate an application key
php artisan key:generate

# Clear the configuration cache
php artisan config:clear

# create a symbolic link (`/public/storage`) from the storage directory (`/storage/app/public`) to the public directory (`/public/`)
php artisan storage:link

Build Db¶

Prepare and set up your database for the Laravel application.

# Run database migrations to create database tables
php artisan migrate

# Seed the database with initial data (if needed)
php artisan db:seed   

Run Development¶

Start the development server for your Laravel application.

# Start the Laravel development server
php artisan serve

(Bonus) A Comparison: Laravel (PHP) vs. Django (Python) MVC-like Architecture¶

A brief comparison of Laravel's architecture to Django's MVC pattern.

Both Laravel (PHP) and Django (Python) frameworks use a MVC-like architecture. Here are the analogies.

Related pages¶

• Guide to Installing MySQL and Connecting to Databases
• Setting Up Laravel Environment on Windows
• Laravel PWA Integration Guide for Mobile Views