./scripts/deploy.sh prod

After 10 years of deploying Laravel applications, I’ve open-sourced the Docker stack I’ve been using in production.

The Problem

Every new Laravel project meant several hours of:

• Configuring Docker Compose
• Setting up Nginx and SSL certificates
• Server hardening (Fail2Ban, firewall, SSH)
• Writing deployment scripts
• Debugging permissions

It was never the interesting part—just friction before actual work could begin.

The Solution: Dockavel

A production-ready Docker environment that handles everything with one command:

./scripts/deploy.sh prod

What It Does

🚀 One-Command Deployment

• Development: ./scripts/dev.sh up
• Production: ./scripts/deploy.sh prod
• Zero-downtime deployments

🔐 Automatic SSL

• Let’s Encrypt integration with auto-renewal
• Cloudflare origin certificates support
• Smart proxy detection
• HTTP to HTTPS redirects

🛡️ Security Hardening

Server setup script configures:

• Fail2Ban for SSH and HTTP protection
• UFW firewall with minimal ports
• SSH hardening (key-only, custom port)
• Automatic security updates

📦 Full Production Stack

• Laravel 12+ with all optimizations
• PHP 8.4-FPM with all extensions
• MySQL 8.0 with persistent volumes
• Redis 7.0 for caching and sessions
• Laravel Horizon for queue monitoring
• Nginx as reverse proxy

💾 Automated Backups

• Daily database backups
• Configurable retention (7/30/90 days)
• Email notifications
• One-command restoration

Quick Start

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/mg2k4/Dockavel.git my-project
cd my-project

# Development
./scripts/deploy.sh dev

# Production (on your server)
./scripts/server-setup.sh  # First time only
./scripts/deploy.sh prod

Your app is now running with SSL, security hardening, and automated backups!

What Makes It Different

Laravel Sail: Great for local development, not production-focused

Laradock: Offers many options but complex for production

Dockavel: Production-first, opinionated, one command to deploy

Architecture

┌─────────────┐
│   Nginx     │ ← SSL termination, reverse proxy
└──────┬──────┘
│
┌──────▼──────┐
│  PHP-FPM    │ ← Laravel application
└──────┬──────┘
│
┌───┴───┬─────────┐
│       │         │
┌──▼──┐  ┌─▼───┐  ┌──▼────┐
│MySQL│  │Redis│  │Horizon│
└─────┘  └─────┘  └───────┘

Links

My First Open Source Project

This is my first time releasing something open source. I’ve been using variations of this stack for 5+ years in production, and I finally cleaned it up to share.

Feedback, issues, and PRs are very welcome! Let me know what features you’d like to see.

License

MIT - Free to use, modify, and distribute.

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If this saves you even a few hours of Docker configuration, I’ll consider it a success. Happy deploying! 🚀

What deployment challenges are you facing with Laravel? Let me know in the comments!