Hosting Laravel on a cPanel Server with Public_html Directory: A Comprehensive Guide
In the realm of web development, hosting your application is an essential part of putting it live for users to access and interact. With Laravel being a popular PHP framework, learning how to deploy and host it on a cPanel server with its public_html directory can significantly simplify the process. In this post, we'll discuss the proper way to upload your Laravel project and ensure everything works as intended.
What is Public_html in cPanel?
cPanel is a user-friendly web hosting control panel widely used by many web hosts. It provides various tools for managing different aspects of your website, including files and directories. The public_html directory is the primary folder where you'll place your website files. This folder is accessible to the public through your domain name and contains all the necessary files for browsing them on a web browser.
Steps to Upload Laravel Project onto cPanel
1. Create a new project folder: Inside your local system, create a new folder for your Laravel application. We'll call this 'laravel_project'.
2. Install the Laravel framework in the newly created folder using Composer: From the command line interface (CLI), navigate to the newly created 'laravel_project' directory and install Laravel using Composer. Run the following commands:
- `composer create-project laravel/laravel laravel_project`
- `cd laravel_project`
- `npm install && npm run dev` (for VueJS) or `yarn install && yarn dev` (for NPM)
3. Set up your Laravel application: Follow the Laravel documentation to configure your application, create the database, and perform initial setup steps as per your needs.
4. Create an FTP client connection with cPanel credentials: To upload files securely, you can use a dedicated FTP (File Transfer Protocol) client like FileZilla or Cyberduck. You'll need to enter your cPanel login details in the FTP client settings. Once connected, you should see all the available directories and files on your server.
5. Upload your Laravel project contents: Now that you have an active connection with your cPanel account, you can upload your application contents. In most cases, you'll want to upload everything from the 'laravel_project' folder onto the public_html directory on your web server.
6. Verify your project upload: After successfully uploading all of your Laravel files into the public_html directory via FTP client, navigate to your domain name in a browser to see if your application is accessible. If you encounter any issues or errors, please consult the Laravel documentation for assistance.
Conclusion
Uploading your Laravel project onto a cPanel server with its public_html directory can be straightforward as long as you follow the correct steps and choose the right location to upload your files. It's always essential to verify if there are any additional configurations required, particularly for your database connection or other application settings. With this comprehensive guide, hosting Laravel on a cPanel server should be a hassle-free process. 
