Deploy Laravel App Using GitHub Actions

it's very nice to build a CI/CD for your app after you finish developing or for staging to check your project on a server, so we get the best way to do that.

you can follow this lesson's steps to get your app live.

🏯 Install Cloudpanel to start working on the new server you need to install a lot of packages, or use a docker container, the easy way to start deploying a Laravel php app is to get a VPS from any service provider like AWS EC2 or Hetziner Cloud ...etc, after you got your VPS and it must be Ubuntu 22.01 you can follow this lesson.

What is Cloudpanel CloudPanel is a free and modern server control panel to configure and manage a server with an obsessive focus on simplicity.

Run PHP, Node.js, Static Websites, Reverse Proxies, and Python Applications in no time on a High-Performance Technology Stack.

Quick launch support for:

Amazon Web Services Digital Ocean Hetzner Cloud Google Compute Engine Microsoft Azure Oracle Cloud Vultr Other

Benefits Free Easy to use Community Driven Blazing Fast Page Loads - Up to 250x faster Secure (free SSL/TLS certificates) Cloudflare integration High Performance Ready to go within 1 minute Supports all major clouds Support for X86 and ARM Install Cloudpanel login to your server using your terminal with SSH

Copyssh root@yourIpAddress If you are using a password to log in, the SSH command would be:

Copyssh -i path_to_your_private_key root@yourIpAddress If you are using a private key to log in, the SSH command would be:

Login via SSH to the Server.

now you are on the server root and the server is empty, to install the panel we need some packages to be installed first and the system to be updated.

Copyapt update && apt -y upgrade && apt -y install curl wget sudo This command will update the system packages, and add the required packages.

now you can start installing the Cloudpanel

Copycurl -sS https://installer.cloudpanel.io/ce/v2/install.sh -o install.sh;
echo "3c30168958264ced81ca9b58dbc55b4d28585d9066b9da085f2b130ae91c50f6 install.sh" |
sha256sum -c && sudo bash install.sh

Access CloudPanel SECURITY

For security reasons, access CloudPanel as fast as possible to create the admin user. There is a small time window where bots can create the user. If possible, open port 8443 only for your IP via the firewall.

You can now access CloudPanel via Browser: https://yourIpAddress:8443

Ignore the self-signed certificate warning click on Advanced and Proceed to continue to CloudPanel.

🔓 Link Cloudflare

we believe that the security and cache are better for any app, so we need to secure our server by using Cloudflare DNS reverser and its power of caching.

Create Cloudflare account it's easy to create a new Cloudflare account like any website out to this link and create a new account

Add your domain to Cloudflare

to add your domain to Cloudflare, on the dashboard of Cloudflare you will find the Websites tab you can click on it and click on the right button to Add a site

after that I will ask you to add your domain and give you a namespace to change it on your domain then go to your domain service provider and change the namespace to the Cloudflare namespace, this process can take 24 hours for some providers, I use Google Domains it takes just 10min, and now your domain is ready on the Cloudflare.

Connect Domain to Cloudpanel now get to your domain after activating it, you will find the DNS tab click on it and add a new A Record with your server IP make sure that your Proxy status is DNS only and that can be pointed to cp.

now go to your Cloudpanel click on Admin Area and then select Settings and change CloudPanel Custom Domain to cp.YOUR_DOMAIN

it will generate auto SSL for you and link the domain for you, you can access the Cloudpanel using your domain

Connect Project Domain

to connect your project domain you need to add a new website, from the Website tab click on the Add Site button, select Create PHP Site App, fill in the details, and click on Create.

now Cloudpanel will redirect and add an nginx template and PHP-FPM to point your domain, go to Cloudflare and add a new DNS A Record and point it to your server domain, then go to SSL/TLS tab and create a new Origin Server SSL, it will give you a 15 years SSL for free, copy it and go to Cloudpanel and select your new Website app and from the tab of SSL/TLS Click on actions and then Import Certificate and add the Cloudflare SSL.

now your domain is linked and secured by SSL, you can access your domain with SSL and make sure that the domain is working.

🔃 Clone Repo login to your server using your terminal with SSH with the user of a created project

Copyssh youproject@yourIpAddress If you are using a password to log in, the SSH command would be:

Copyssh -i path_to_your_private_key root@yourIpAddress If you are using a private key to log in, the SSH command would be:

Login via SSH to the Server.

you are on the server user and you can generate an SSH key to link it with your GitHub Project to generate this key use this command line

Copyssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "your_email@example.com" and you can just click enter after finishing you will get a path ending with .pub copy the path and then use this command to view the path SSH key content and then copy it

Copycat .ssh/rsa.pub where.ssh/rsa.pub is the path of your key

now go to your GitHun Repo and on the Settings Tab, select Deploy keys and then add deploy Key and then select a name add your SSH key then save it.

now your server has access to this repo and you can clone it so go back to your server and then on the path of the project it can look like this

Copycd /home/yourproject/htdocs/yourproject.com and clone your repo like this

Copygit clone git@github.com:tomatophp/tomato.git . it will clone the project on the current directory

now it's time to install the composer packages and set up the project .env file follow these steps

Copy .env file use this command to copy .env.example

Copycp .env.example .env now update your details and create a new database from Cloudpanel on the Database Tab create a new database, then add the details of the database to .env

CopyDB_CONNECTION=mysql DB_HOST=127.0.0.1 DB_PORT=3306 DB_DATABASE=tomato-kit DB_USERNAME=root DB_PASSWORD=26111995 change the main URL in .env file

CopyAPP_URL=https://yourproject.com APP_HOST=yourproject.com Install Composer packages and clean the project to install composer packages just use this command

Copycomposer install then you can run your project command and the important one is

Copyphp artisan key:generate php artisan config:cache php artisan storage:link php artisan optimize:clear now your app is ready for Frontend assets to make this work you need to install npm

Install NVM/NPM/Yarn Install nvm with the following command:

Copycurl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.39.2/install.sh | bash Update the current shell environment:

Copysource ~/.bashrc Install your required Node.js version e.g. 18:

Copynvm install 18 Activate the installed Node.js version:

Copynvm use 18 Done! Check the Node.js version:

Copynode -v now you can install Yarn using this command

Copynpm -g i yarn now you can easily run yarn to build assets

Copyyarn & yarn build your project is ready now and you can view it on your browser.

🎇 Workflow the next step to build your CI/CD is to create a Workflow yaml file on your project repo, on your project file create a new folder with the name .github inside this folder create another one with the name workflows In this folder create a file with the name ci.yaml