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Laravel is the most popular PHP framework. This guide covers a complete production deployment: PHP-FPM, Nginx, Composer dependencies, environment configuration, and the essential Laravel-specific optimization commands.

Prerequisites

• PHP installed with required extensions (see How to Install PHP on Ubuntu & Debian)
• Composer installed
• Nginx installed
• MySQL/MariaDB or PostgreSQL installed

Step 1 — Transfer Your Application

rsync -avz --exclude 'node_modules' --exclude 'vendor' ./myapp/ deploy@YOUR_SERVER_IP:/var/www/myapp/

Step 2 — Install PHP Dependencies

cd /var/www/myapp
composer install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader

Step 3 — Configure the Environment File

cp .env.example .env
nano .env

Set your database credentials, APP_URL, and:

APP_ENV=production
APP_DEBUG=false

Never leave APP_DEBUG=true in production — it exposes sensitive stack traces and configuration to visitors on error pages.

Step 4 — Generate the Application Key

php artisan key:generate

Step 5 — Run Database Migrations

php artisan migrate --force

Step 6 — Set Correct Permissions

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/myapp
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/myapp/storage /var/www/myapp/bootstrap/cache

Step 7 — Configure Nginx

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

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name myapp.example.com;
    root /var/www/myapp/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;
    }
}

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/myapp /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo nginx -t && sudo systemctl reload nginx

Step 8 — Cache Configuration for Production Performance

php artisan config:cache
php artisan route:cache
php artisan view:cache

Step 9 — Add HTTPS

sudo certbot --nginx -d myapp.example.com

Step 10 — Set Up the Scheduler (If Your App Uses Laravel's Task Scheduling)

sudo crontab -e

* * * * * cd /var/www/myapp && php artisan schedule:run >> /dev/null 2>&1

Deploying Updates

cd /var/www/myapp
git pull
composer install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader
php artisan migrate --force
php artisan config:cache
php artisan route:cache
php artisan view:cache

Common Errors

500 error with no useful detail — check Laravel's own log:

tail -f /var/www/myapp/storage/logs/laravel.log

"The stream or file ... could not be opened" — a storage/cache directory permission issue; re-run the chown/chmod commands from Step 6.

Changes to .env not taking effect — clear the config cache: php artisan config:clear, then re-cache if needed.

Best Practices

• Always set APP_DEBUG=false and APP_ENV=production
• Run the artisan cache commands after every deployment for production performance
• Point the web root specifically at Laravel's public directory, never the project root

Related Articles

• How to Install PHP on Ubuntu & Debian
• How to Install Composer for PHP Dependency Management
• How to Install and Secure MySQL 8 on Ubuntu & Debian