Introduction
All of the configuration files for the Laravel framework
are stored in the config directory. Each
option is documented, so feel free to look through the
files and get familiar with the options available to
you.
After Installation
Naming Your Application
After installing Laravel, you may wish to
"name" your application. By default, the
app directory is namespaced under
App, and autoloaded by Composer using the
PSR-4
autoloading standard. However, you may change
the namespace to match the name of your application,
which you can easily do via the app:name
Artisan command.
For example, if your application is named "Horsefly", you could run the following command from the root of your installation:
php artisan app:name Horsefly
Renaming your application is entirely optional, and you
are free to keep the App namespace if you
wish.
Other Configuration
Laravel needs very little configuration out of the box.
You are free to get started developing! However, you may
wish to review the config/app.php file and
its documentation. It contains several options such as
timezone and locale that you
may wish to change according to your location.
Once Laravel is installed, you should also configure your local environment.
Note: You should never have the
app.debugconfiguration option set totruefor a production application.
Permissions
Laravel may require one set of permissions to be
configured: folders within storage require
write access by the web server.
Accessing Configuration Values
You may easily access your configuration values using the
Config facade:
$value = Config::get('app.timezone');
Config::set('app.timezone', 'America/Chicago');
You may also use the config helper
function:
$value = config('app.timezone');
Environment Configuration
It is often helpful to have different configuration values based on the environment the application is running in. For example, you may wish to use a different cache driver locally than you do on your production server. It's easy using environment based configuration.
To make this a cinch, Laravel utilizes the DotEnv
PHP library by Vance Lucas. In a fresh Laravel
installation, the root directory of your application
will contain a .env.example file. If you
install Laravel via Composer, this file will
automatically be renamed to .env.
Otherwise, you should rename the file manually.
All of the variables listed in this file will be loaded
into the $_ENV PHP super-global when your
application receives a request. You may use the
env helper to retrieve values from these
variables. In fact, if you review the Laravel
configuration files, you will notice several of the
options already using this helper!
Feel free to modify your environment variables as needed
for your own local server, as well as your production
environment. However, your .env file should
not be committed to your application's source control,
since each developer / server using your application
could require a different environment configuration.
If you are developing with a team, you may wish to
continue including a .env.example file with
your application. By putting place-holder values in the
example configuration file, other developers on your
team can clearly see which environment variables are
needed to run your application.
Accessing The Current Application Environment
You may access the current application environment via
the environment method on the
Application instance:
$environment = $app->environment();
You may also pass arguments to the
environment method to check if the
environment matches a given value:
if ($app->environment('local'))
{
// The environment is local
}
if ($app->environment('local', 'staging'))
{
// The environment is either local OR staging...
}
To obtain an instance of the application, resolve the
Illuminate\Contracts\Foundation\Application
contract via the service container.
Of course, if you are within a service provider,
the application instance is available via the
$this->app instance variable.
An application instance may also be accessed via the
app helper of the App
facade:
$environment = app()->environment();
$environment = App::environment();
Configuration Caching
To give your application a little speed boost, you may
cache all of your configuration files into a single file
using the config:cache Artisan command.
This will combine all of the configuration options for
your application into a single file which can be loaded
quickly by the framework.
You should typically run the config:cache
command as part of your deployment routine.
Maintenance Mode
When your application is in maintenance mode, a custom
view will be displayed for all requests into your
application. This makes it easy to "disable"
your application while it is updating or when you are
performing maintenance. A maintenance mode check is
included in the default middleware stack for your
application. If the application is in maintenance mode,
an HttpException will be thrown with a
status code of 503.
To enable maintenance mode, simply execute the
down Artisan command:
php artisan down
To disable maintenance mode, use the up
command:
php artisan up
Maintenance Mode Response Template
The default template for maintenance mode responses is
located in
resources/views/errors/503.blade.php.
Maintenance Mode & Queues
While your application is in maintenance mode, no queued jobs will be handled. The jobs will continue to be handled as normal once the application is out of maintenance mode.
Pretty URLs
Apache
The framework ships with a public/.htaccess
file that is used to allow URLs without
index.php. If you use Apache to serve your
Laravel application, be sure to enable the
mod_rewrite module.
If the .htaccess file that ships with
Laravel does not work with your Apache installation, try
this one:
Options FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^ index.php [L]
Nginx
On Nginx, the following directive in your site configuration will allow "pretty" URLs:
location / {
try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string;
}
Of course, when using Homestead, pretty URLs will be configured automatically.