Deploy to production

[ekrist1]

I'm trying to create a setup which allows multiple Laravel apps on the same VPS. The Dockerfile is installing support for Queue workers and Cron jobs, but not sure if it is correct.

I have added config so the cache, logs and storage-files are mapped to a local volume. Mysql is installed on the host-server and the compose config should proxy the traffic.

I can't get this working correctly. Can someone guide me how to correct this config for making it work?

structure

/var/www/
├── myapp1/
│   ├── code/          # Your Laravel project files
│   └── storage/       # Persistent storage (logs, cache, sessions)
├── myapp2/
│   ├── code/          # Your Laravel project files
│   └── storage/       # Persistent storage (logs, cache, sessions)
└── myapp3/
    ├── code/          # Your Laravel project files
    └── storage/       # Persistent storage (logs, cache, sessions)

setup steps

export APP_NAME="myapp1"  # Change this for each app
sudo mkdir -p /var/www/$APP_NAME/{code,storage/logs,storage/framework/{cache,sessions,views}}
sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /var/www/$APP_NAME

cd /var/www/$APP_NAME/code
# Clone your repository or copy your Laravel files here

/var/www/$APP_NAME/code/
├── Dockerfile
├── compose.yml
└── .env

# For myapp1
APP_NAME=myapp1
HTTP_PORT=8080
HTTPS_PORT=8443
APP_URL=http://your-domain.com:8080

# For myapp2  
APP_NAME=myapp2
HTTP_PORT=8081
HTTPS_PORT=8444
APP_URL=http://your-domain.com:8081

//Docerfile

FROM dunglas/frankenphp:latest

# Install system dependencies
RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y \
    git \
    curl \
    libpng-dev \
    libonig-dev \
    libxml2-dev \
    libzip-dev \
    zip \
    unzip \
    cron \
    supervisor \
    && docker-php-ext-install pdo_mysql mbstring exif pcntl bcmath gd zip

# Install Composer
COPY --from=composer:latest /usr/bin/composer /usr/bin/composer

# Set working directory
WORKDIR /app

# Copy composer files
COPY composer.json composer.lock ./

# Install PHP dependencies
RUN composer install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader --no-scripts

# Copy application code
COPY . .

# Set permissions for Laravel
RUN chown -R www-data:www-data /app \
    && chmod -R 755 /app/storage \
    && chmod -R 755 /app/bootstrap/cache

# Create supervisor configuration for queue workers
RUN mkdir -p /etc/supervisor/conf.d && cat > /etc/supervisor/conf.d/laravel-worker.conf << 'EOF'
[program:laravel-worker]
process_name=%(program_name)s_%(process_num)02d
command=php /app/artisan queue:work --sleep=3 --tries=3 --max-time=3600
autostart=true
autorestart=true
stopasgroup=true
killasgroup=true
user=www-data
numprocs=2
redirect_stderr=true
stdout_logfile=/app/storage/logs/worker.log
stopwaitsecs=3600

[supervisord]
nodaemon=true
user=root

[unix_http_server]
file=/var/run/supervisor.sock
chmod=0700

[supervisorctl]
serverurl=unix:///var/run/supervisor.sock

[rpcinterface:supervisor]
supervisor.rpcinterface_factory = supervisor.rpcinterface:make_main_rpcinterface
EOF

# Create cron configuration
RUN cat > /etc/cron.d/laravel-scheduler << 'EOF'
* * * * * www-data cd /app && php artisan schedule:run >> /app/storage/logs/scheduler.log 2>&1
EOF
RUN chmod 0644 /etc/cron.d/laravel-scheduler \
    && crontab /etc/cron.d/laravel-scheduler

# Create Caddyfile for FrankenPHP
RUN mkdir -p /etc/caddy && cat > /etc/caddy/Caddyfile << 'EOF'
{
    frankenphp
    order php_server before file_server
}

:80 {
    root * /app/public
    
    # Enable compression
    encode gzip zstd
    
    # Security headers
    header {
        X-Content-Type-Options nosniff
        X-Frame-Options DENY
        X-XSS-Protection "1; mode=block"
    }
    
    # Handle PHP files with FrankenPHP
    php_server
    
    # Handle static files
    file_server
    
    # Laravel-specific rules
    @notfound {
        not file
        not path /
    }
    
    # Redirect everything to index.php for Laravel routing
    try_files {path} /index.php?{query}
    
    # Logging
    log {
        output file /app/storage/logs/access.log
        format json
    }
}
EOF

# Expose port
EXPOSE 80 443

# Start services
CMD ["sh", "-c", "cron && supervisord -c /etc/supervisor/supervisord.conf && frankenphp run --config /etc/caddy/Caddyfile"]

//compose.yml

services:
  app:
    build: .
    container_name: ${APP_NAME:-myapp}-laravel-app
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "${HTTP_PORT:-8080}:80"      # HTTP - Use custom port
      - "${HTTPS_PORT:-8443}:443"    # HTTPS - Use custom port
      - "${HTTPS_PORT:-8443}:443/udp" # HTTP/3 - Use custom port
    volumes:
      - ./:/app
      - ./storage:/app/storage
      - ./bootstrap/cache:/app/bootstrap/cache
      - caddy_data:/data
      - caddy_config:/config
      - laravel-logs:/app/storage/logs
      - laravel-cache:/app/storage/framework/cache
      - laravel-sessions:/app/storage/framework/sessions
      - laravel-views:/app/storage/framework/views
    environment:
      - APP_ENV=production
      - APP_DEBUG=false
      - DB_CONNECTION=mysql
      - DB_HOST=host.docker.internal
      - DB_PORT=3306
      - DB_DATABASE=${DB_DATABASE}
      - DB_USERNAME=${DB_USERNAME}
      - DB_PASSWORD=${DB_PASSWORD}
      - CACHE_DRIVER=file
      - SESSION_DRIVER=file
      - QUEUE_CONNECTION=database
    extra_hosts:
      - "host.docker.internal:host-gateway"
    networks:
      - laravel-network

  queue-worker:
    build: .
    container_name: ${APP_NAME:-myapp}-laravel-queue-worker
    restart: unless-stopped
    command: php artisan queue:work --sleep=3 --tries=3 --max-time=3600
    volumes:
      - ./:/app
      - ./storage:/app/storage
      - ./bootstrap/cache:/app/bootstrap/cache
      - laravel-logs:/app/storage/logs
      - laravel-cache:/app/storage/framework/cache
    environment:
      - APP_ENV=production
      - APP_DEBUG=false
      - DB_CONNECTION=mysql
      - DB_HOST=host.docker.internal
      - DB_PORT=3306
      - DB_DATABASE=${DB_DATABASE}
      - DB_USERNAME=${DB_USERNAME}
      - DB_PASSWORD=${DB_PASSWORD}
      - CACHE_DRIVER=file
      - QUEUE_CONNECTION=database
    extra_hosts:
      - "host.docker.internal:host-gateway"
    networks:
      - laravel-network
    depends_on:
      - app

  scheduler:
    build: .
    container_name: ${APP_NAME:-myapp}-laravel-scheduler
    restart: unless-stopped
    command: sh -c "while true; do php artisan schedule:run >> /app/storage/logs/scheduler.log 2>&1; sleep 60; done"
    volumes:
      - ./:/app
      - ./storage:/app/storage
      - ./bootstrap/cache:/app/bootstrap/cache
      - laravel-logs:/app/storage/logs
      - laravel-cache:/app/storage/framework/cache
    environment:
      - APP_ENV=production
      - APP_DEBUG=false
      - DB_CONNECTION=mysql
      - DB_HOST=host.docker.internal
      - DB_PORT=3306
      - DB_DATABASE=${DB_DATABASE}
      - DB_USERNAME=${DB_USERNAME}
      - DB_PASSWORD=${DB_PASSWORD}
      - CACHE_DRIVER=file
      - QUEUE_CONNECTION=database
    extra_hosts:
      - "host.docker.internal:host-gateway"
    networks:
      - laravel-network
    depends_on:
      - app

volumes:
  caddy_data:
  caddy_config:
  laravel-logs:
    driver: local
    driver_opts:
      type: none
      o: bind
      device: /var/www/${APP_NAME:-myapp}/storage/logs
  laravel-cache:
    driver: local
    driver_opts:
      type: none
      o: bind
      device: /var/www/${APP_NAME:-myapp}/storage/framework/cache
  laravel-sessions:
    driver: local
    driver_opts:
      type: none
      o: bind
      device: /var/www/${APP_NAME:-myapp}/storage/framework/sessions
  laravel-views:
    driver: local
    driver_opts:
      type: none
      o: bind
      device: /var/www/${APP_NAME:-myapp}/storage/framework/views

networks:
  laravel-network:
    driver: bridge

[AlliBalliBaba]

Where exactly are you failing in the setup?

Do you want to have each laravel app on a different port or different hostname/path? Or do you have trouble setting up queues and cron-jobs?

[ekrist1]

It was a issue with permission when storing files outside the Dockerimage. I got the bug fixed with Claude. However, using Frankenphp in production takes me longer time then reproducing a VPS with fixed setup.

[AlliBalliBaba]

Yeah currently deploying specifically a Laravel app is not well documented. I might add docs for a 'best practice' Docker image at some point. If you have any suggestions or tips for difficulties you encountered, let me know!

[ekrist1]

I'm using Docker for running Python services and it works well, so I see the benefits of using Docker in many cases. For big projects I could see the benefits using FrankenPHP for having a fixed environment across development PCs and servers. For smaller projects I feel like it adds unnecessary complexity, especially when you need to set up a web server like Caddy or Nginx as a reverse proxy in front of it. When you run multiple Docker images on the same server you need to manage ports and networking between the containers, which can get complicated.

On a fresh VPS Fedora server, with a collection of bash scripts, I can have a Laravel site up and running in less than 10 minutes.

Maybe a real world case and configs for deploying a Laravel app to production would be a good idea.