Server provisioned with Forge not detecting environment properly

When using artisan, you can specify the environment like so:

php artisan migrate --env=staging

In forge, you can set the environement variables directly from the interface. This will: - Make the variables available in cli mode by creating a .env..php file - Set the corresponding environement variables in the nginx config

You can also update the .env* files directly by sshing the server and manually adjusting the nginx server config. In that case, you can no more rely on the GUI for handling your variables.

Finally, note that you can adjust your deployment script. Do not forget to add the environement variables there when needed: php artisan migrate --env=staging

I'd be glad to help you more, I have been struggling with this quite a bit when I started trying out Forge.

@rem I think my main issue is that no matter what I set my "APP_NAME_ENV" environment variable to (through Forge's interface), my environment always comes out to be "local". The only way I have been able to use environment variables in my app is if I upload .env.local.php to my server.

Any thoughts as to why my closure always returns "local"?

I'm not sure how Forge sets APP_NAME_ENV, but last time I played with environment variables, it was only set for apache (or in the case of forge, nginx), so accessing from a browser would work but not from terminal.

Yeah, for me the environment variable works in the browser but not when using artisan. I need to use ---env=production on my deployment scripts and cron jobs so Laravel knows to read the correct .env.php file.

Given that Laravel lets you set environment specific variables with .env.*.php files, and that only one of these files 'should' exist on a particular server at a time, I've found success by using these files as a way to 'identify' the environment:

@dannielssousa Thanks

$env    =   $app->detectEnvironment(function()
        {
            $allowedEnvironments    =   [
                'homestead',
                'development',
                'staging',
                'production',
            ];

            if(in_array(getenv('APPLICATION_ENV'), $allowedEnvironments)){
                return getenv('APPLICATION_ENV');
            }

            foreach ($allowedEnvironments as $allowedEnvironment)
            {
                if (file_exists(__DIR__ . "/../.env." . $allowedEnvironment . ".php")){
                    return $allowedEnvironment;
                }
            }

            if(file_exists(__DIR__ . "/../.env.php")){
                return 'production';
            }

            throw new \Exception("Invalid environment, check configurations");
        });

This works for me on Homestead and Forge provisioning DigitalOcean Servers and takes care of those annoying "{"error":{"type":"ErrorException","message":"Undefined index:" errors.

As a note on Forge for the CLI to work you do have to set the environment variables yourself. This is easily done by following this tutorial: https://laracasts.com/series/server-management-with-forge/episodes/5

@rjv, "I think my main issue is that no matter what I set my "APP_NAME_ENV" environment variable to (through Forge's interface), my environment always comes out to be "local"."

This is because Forge cannot set environmental variables for your command line session, only for nginx (http requests). The ways to get around this are:

1. Set the default environment to be your forge environment, and manually specify it in other environments (updated).
2. Use --env=staging in all of your artisan commands.
3. Update your env detection closure to look for a file you know only exists on Forge, and return staging when it's found.

Make sense?

@Valorin, Thank you for the descriptive answer. It wasn't clear that the environment variables are handled differently based on the client.

No worries :-)

Although I just realized that option #1 wont work with your custom env code. It should say: make the forge environment the default environment.

I have been stuck now with this issue, and found a way to deal with the choice of environment. Now this works, hurray! But then.... This means I cannot run "php artisan migrate" either, because the database connections is ALSO stored in Envoirment Variables (from forge) like this http://laravel.io/bin/LN8Pl.. Now - what do I do? I

You CAN use "php artisan migrate". Just add --env=development (or whatever your environment name is). Actually, for my script above laravel is "forced" to determine the environment based on the existence of the .env file. I don't append --env to my artisan commands and they work just fine

@Chuckky you can improve with

$env = $app->detectEnvironment(function () {
    $allowedEnvironments = [
        'homestead',
        'development',
        'staging',
        'production',

    ];

    if (in_array(getenv('APPLICATION_ENV'), $allowedEnvironments)) {
        return getenv('APPLICATION_ENV');
    }
    foreach ($allowedEnvironments as $allowedEnvironment) {
        if (file_exists(__DIR__ . "/../.env." . $allowedEnvironment . ".php")) {
            return $allowedEnvironment;
        }
    }
    if (file_exists(__DIR__ . "/../.env.php")) {
        return 'production';
    }
    throw new \Exception("Invalid environment, check configurations");

});

God, why is Laravel environment handling so clunky :/

Shipping with this as the default would solve so many problems

The amount of boilerplate you need to get a sane multi-environment setup going is the most frustrating thing about this otherwise works-well-right-out-of-the-box framework.