How to Deploy a Laravel Project from Local to Live Production Server Without HTTP ERROR 500

You have successfully made an app with Laravel on your local. Now, the next step is deploying the app to a live production server so it can be access for everyone.

Step 1: Upload Files

Upload all your Laravel project files to the live production server in the root folder. As an example, I have made /public_html/restoapp as the root path for my Restaurant App. So, I uploaded everything into the folder.

Step 2: Create database

Next, create the database for the app. Creating database is different, based on what server/hosting you used and what kind of databse you use. In my case, I use StackCP and MySQL database so the interface is like shown in the photo below.

After your database has been created, you will get the username, database name, password and hostname. You will need to use all these information in Step 3.

Next, login into phpMyAdmin and import the .sql file that you have exported from your local.

Step 3: Edit .env file

Now that you have your files and database ready, you need to edit your .env file so that your app will use the database that you've just created. Simply change DB_HOST, DB_DATABASE, DB_USERNAME and DB_PASSWORD in the file by using your newly created database information from the previous step.

Step 4: Create redirect to public folder

Your app should already be deployed by now. However, it can only be access if you put /public into the URL of your app. For example, the url of my app is restoapp.aliya-h.com, but the app can only be accessible if I open restoapp.aliya-h.com/public. If I open my app without the /public, I will get a 500 Error as shown below.

To avoid this, we need to create a new .htaccess file in the root folder where all our files were uploaded. Inside this file, insert these lines of code:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^public
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ public/$1 [L]

What this code do is, it will redirect all access of your app to the folder /public, without explicitly show it in the URL. 

Step 5: Done

Congratulations! You have successfully deploy your app to a live server!

You can view the Laravel project that I've deployed for this tutorial in this link: http://restoapp.aliya-h.com/ (please open it on desktop as it is not mobile-friendly).