How to Install Laravel on Debian 10

In this article, we will have explained the necessary steps to install and set up Laravel on Debian 10. Before continuing with this tutorial, make sure you are logged in as a user with sudo privileges. All the commands in this tutorial should be run as a non-root user.

Laravel is a very popular open-source PHP framework with the expressive and elegant syntax used to design modern and beautiful web applications. Laravel aims to take the pain out of web development and make it an enjoyable and creative experience, turning web devs into web artisans.

Install Laravel on Debian 10

Step 1. The first command will update the package lists to ensure you get the latest version and dependencies.

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install software-properties-common apt-transport-https wget

Step 2. Install LAMP Stack.

You need to set up the LAMP stack on your Ubuntu system. If you haven’t done so already, use our traditional LAMP guide to set up Ubuntu to serve PHP before you continue.

Step 3. Install Composer.

The composer is an application-level package manager for PHP that provides a standard format for managing dependencies of PHP software and required libraries. Run the following command to install Composer on the Ubuntu system:

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

Step 4. Install Laravel on the Debian system.

Now we clone the latest Laravel source code from its official git repository to your local system. Just execute the following command:

cd /var/www
git clone https://github.com/laravel/laravel.git

Then, change the Laravel directory and use the composer to install all dependencies required for the Laravel framework:

cd /var/www/laravel
sudo composer install

After that, set the directory permissions accordingly:

chown -R www-data.www-data /var/www/laravel
chmod -R 755 /var/www/laravel
chmod -R 777 /var/www/laravel/storage

Step 5. Set Encryption Key.

First, we rename the .evn.example file to .env in the project’s main directory. This will use to set up the application environment for the project:

mv .env.example .env

Then, generate base64 random number encryption key:

$ php artisan key:generate
Application key set successfully.

After generates random encryption, now we edit the .env configuration file and update the required settings. Also, make sure APP_KEY is properly set as generated in the above command:

$ nano .env

APP_NAME=Laravel
APP_ENV=local
APP_KEY=base64:godetzp+AeHu7kc2chedelicsq2BQ/1gfFWEpoAk=
APP_DEBUG=true
APP_URL=http://localhost
...

Step 6. Create a MariaDB database for Laravel.

Laravel uses the MariaDB database to store all its data like posts, pages, users, plugins, and themes settings. Log in to your MariaDB server with the following command and enter your MariaDB root password:

mysql -u root -p

Once you’re in the MariaDB console, create a new database:

CREATE DATABASE laravel;
CREATE USER 'laravel'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'your-passwd';
GRANT ALL ON laravel.* to 'laravel'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
quit

Then, edit the .env file and update database settings:

DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=laravel
DB_USERNAME=laravel
DB_PASSWORD=your-passwd

Step 7. Configuring Apache for Laravel.

Create a new virtual host configuration file for your Laravel website, named your-domain.com.conf:

nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/your_domain.com.conf

Update configuration as:

<VirtualHost *:80>    
      ServerAdmin [email protected]
      DocumentRoot "/var/www/laravel/public"
      ServerName your-domain.com
      ServerAlias www.your-domain.com

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

      <Directory /var/www/laravel/>
         Options FollowSymlinks
         AllowOverride All
         Require all granted
 </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

To enable the virtual host we have just created, run the following command:

ln -s /etc/apache2/sites-available/your-domain.com.conf /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/your-domain.com.conf

For the new configuration to take effect, restart the Apache service by typing:

sudo a2ensite your_domain.com.conf 
sudo a2enmod rewrite
sudo systemctl restart apache2

Step 8. Accessing Laravel.

Now you can access the Laravel web install wizard using an HTTP connection:

https://your-domain.com

That’s all you need to do to install the Laravel on Debian 10 Buster. I hope you find this quick tip helpful. For further reading on Laravel, please refer to their official knowledge base. If you have questions or suggestions, feel free to leave a comment below.