Why a Checklist Matters for Laravel VPS Deployment

Laravel is a well-structured framework, but deploying it to a production VPS involves more than just uploading files. A missed step — wrong permissions, uncached configuration, or a missing PHP extension — can silently break your application or expose it to security risks. This checklist walks you through every required step in the correct order.

Pre-Deployment Checklist

Server Requirements

• PHP version compatible with your Laravel version (Laravel 10+ requires PHP 8.1+, Laravel 11+ requires PHP 8.2+)
• Required PHP extensions: BCMath, Ctype, cURL, DOM, Fileinfo, JSON, Mbstring, OpenSSL, PCRE, PDO, Tokenizer, XML
• Composer 2.x installed
• MySQL 5.7+ or MariaDB 10.3+
• Apache or Nginx web server
• Sufficient disk space and RAM for your application load

Step 1: Upload Application Files

• Upload your Laravel project as a zip archive via SCP, SFTP, or your hosting control panel
• Extract to your web root (e.g., /var/www/myapp)
• Do not place files inside /var/www/html directly — use a dedicated directory

Step 2: Install PHP Dependencies

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

The --no-dev flag excludes development-only packages from your production installation. The --optimize-autoloader flag generates an optimized class map for faster autoloading.

Step 3: Create and Configure .env

cp .env.example .env
nano .env

Essential .env values to set:

• APP_NAME — your application name
• APP_ENV=production
• APP_DEBUG=false — critical for production security
• APP_URL — your full domain with https://
• DB_CONNECTION=mysql
• DB_HOST, DB_PORT, DB_DATABASE, DB_USERNAME, DB_PASSWORD

Step 4: Generate Application Key

php artisan key:generate

This generates a unique encryption key and writes it to your .env as APP_KEY. Never share this key or commit it to version control.

Step 5: Create and Configure the Database

mysql -u root -p
CREATE DATABASE myapp_db CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;
CREATE USER 'myapp_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'strong_password';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON myapp_db.* TO 'myapp_user'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

Step 6: Run Database Migrations

php artisan migrate --force

The --force flag is required in production mode. If your application has seeders:

php artisan db:seed --force

Step 7: Set Correct File Permissions

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/myapp
sudo find /var/www/myapp -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;
sudo find /var/www/myapp -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \;
sudo chmod -R 775 /var/www/myapp/storage
sudo chmod -R 775 /var/www/myapp/bootstrap/cache

Step 8: Create Public Storage Symlink

php artisan storage:link

This creates a symlink from public/storage to storage/app/public, making stored files publicly accessible via URL.

Step 9: Optimize for Production

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

These commands cache your configuration, routes, and compiled views for significantly faster response times in production.

Step 10: Configure Web Server

For Nginx

Create a server block at /etc/nginx/sites-available/myapp pointing the root to /var/www/myapp/public with a try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string directive for PHP-FPM.

For Apache

Set your DocumentRoot to /var/www/myapp/public, enable mod_rewrite, and ensure AllowOverride All is set for the directory. Laravel's built-in .htaccess handles URL rewriting.

Step 11: SSL Certificate Setup

Install a free SSL certificate using Let's Encrypt:

sudo apt install certbot -y
sudo certbot --nginx -d yourdomain.com -d www.yourdomain.com

Or for Apache:

sudo certbot --apache -d yourdomain.com -d www.yourdomain.com

Step 12: Queue Workers (if required)

If your application uses Laravel queues, create a supervisor configuration or PM2 process for the queue worker:

php artisan queue:work --daemon

Step 13: Scheduled Tasks (if required)

Add the Laravel scheduler to your system cron:

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

Post-Installation Verification Checklist

• Application loads at your domain without errors
• HTTPS is working and redirects HTTP traffic correctly
• User login and registration function correctly
• File uploads work (storage symlink is correct)
• Emails send correctly (if your app sends emails)
• Background jobs process correctly (if using queues)
• APP_DEBUG=false in production (no debug info visible)
• Check storage/logs/laravel.log for any silent errors

Common Laravel Installation Errors

Class Not Found

Run composer dump-autoload to regenerate the autoloader classmap.

TokenMismatchException on Forms

Usually a session or storage permissions issue. Check the storage directory permissions.

Redirect Loop

Often caused by incorrect APP_URL in .env or a missing trusted proxy configuration when behind a load balancer or reverse proxy.

500 Internal Server Error

Check storage/logs/laravel.log for the actual error message. Common causes: missing .env values, failed migrations, PHP extension not installed.

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