Be part of JetBrains PHPverse 2026 on June 9 – a free online event bringing PHP devs worldwide together.

step1step2's avatar

Deploy Larabook without Forge

Been trying to deploy my costum Larabook app though fortrabbit but the app is too huge already. I got a package on DO and I want to use Dokku to deploy.

Just followed these guides here: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tags/dokku

But I still can't push it to DO. Maybe I'm stupid :{

0 likes
13 replies
xuma's avatar

Offtopic but if you working alone try Git-ftp .Better than most serverside solutions.

step1step2's avatar

Considering reading https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-use-the-dokku-one-click-install-image-to-deploy-your-app I created a Droplet as described, then I redirected my domain to the Ip adress of the droplet, checked virtual host naming and pasted my public key.

Right after I cd'ed in my local directory

git init
echo vendor > .gitignore
git add .
git remote add remote_name dokku@your_domain.com:name_to_give_your_app
git push remote_name master

Result:

error: src refspec master does not match any.
error: failed to push some refs to 'dokku@domain.com:remote_name'

What did I miss?

step1step2's avatar

Just moved on using LEMP, I just don't get it to work.

http://robert-richter.com/info.php

http://robert-richter.com/public/info.php

When I visit http://robert-richter.com/public I get a blank white page. Been trying to figure it out a day. It has so be something in the Larabook application, because info.php gets displayed.

Just gave all directories chmod 777, I know this is retarded, but I just want to see my application in the browser T_T.

step1step2's avatar

No I didn't. Getting 404 Not Found now instead. And SQLSTATE[28000] [1045] Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost' (using pas sword: NO) when I try ti migrate the database.

joedawson's avatar

Looking at the repo, it looks like database.php is using some environment variables for the database. Have you set these up?

step1step2's avatar

Yes.

<?php

return [
    'DB_HOST' => 'localhost',
    'DB_USERNAME' => 'root',
    'DB_PASSWORD' => 'secret',
    'DB_NAME' => 'larabook_testing'
];

bashy's avatar

In routes file, try

return getenv('DB_PASSWORD');
step1step2's avatar

That didn't do anything, wondering why you want me to use it at routes.php file. I remember one part of the tutorial where I changed the something at terminal that it uses .env.testing.php instead of .env.local.php. Do I need to set this?

bashy's avatar

Well you can test it anywhere, just routes.php is easy since it's a place the app will always check.

.env.local.php (testing would mean you need to set your environment to testing).

step1step2's avatar

Do you know the command to set the environment to testing? Maybe I need to do that on the server.

bashy's avatar

L4.2 or L5?

L4.2: bootstrap/start.php (I think) L5: bootstrap/environment.php

Set the hostname and name of it (local is easy to stick with). Create or rename your file to .env.local.php and it should return local with this command

» artisan env
Current application environment: local

Please or to participate in this conversation.