Deploying Laravel to a subfolder using Apache and mod_rewrite

Deploying Laravel to a subfolder using Apache and mod_rewrite

To deploy a Laravel application to a subfolder using Apache and mod_rewrite, follow these steps:

1. Install Laravel: First, make sure you have Laravel installed in your project directory. You can install it using Composer by running the following command:

composer create --prefer-dist laravel/laravel project-name

Replace "project-name" with the name of your project.

2. Create a new virtual host: Create a new virtual host configuration file for your Laravel application in the Apache sites-available directory. For example, create a file named subfolder.example.com.conf:

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/subfolder.example.com.conf

Add the following configuration to the file:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName subfolder.example.com
    ServerAdmin [email protected]
    DocumentRoot /var/www/subfolder.example.com/public

    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

    Option Indexes FollowSymLinks
    Option MultiViews
    Option AllHeaders On

    AllowOverride All

    Require all granted;
</VirtualHost>

Replace subfolder.example.com with your desired domain name or subdomain.

3. Enable the new virtual host: Enable the new virtual host by creating a symbolic link to the sites-enabled directory:

sudo ln -s /etc/apache2/sites-available/subfolder.example.com.conf /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/

4. Configure mod_rewrite: Edit the Apache httpd.conf file to enable mod_rewrite and include the necessary configuration file:

sudo nano /etc/apache2/httpd.conf

Add the following lines to the file:

LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so
IncludeOptional /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/mod-rewrite.conf

Save and close the file.

5. Create a .htaccess file: Create a .htaccess file in the root directory of your Laravel application (/var/www/subfolder.example.com/) with the following content:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^public
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ public/$1 [L,QSA]

This file will handle the URL routing for your Laravel application.

6. Set permissions: Set the correct permissions for your Laravel application directory and its contents:

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/subfolder.example.com/
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/subfolder.example.com/
sudo chmod -R 644 /var/www/subfolder.example.com/public/storage /var/www/subfolder.example.com/public/bootstrap/cache

7. Restart Apache: Restart Apache to apply the changes:

sudo systemctl restart apache2

Your Laravel application should now be accessible through the subfolder URL. For example, http://subfolder.example.com.