Deploy Quasar + Laravel + MySQL on AWS EC2

STEP 01Prerequisites

Before starting, make sure you have:

An AWS account with access to the EC2 dashboard
A domain name pointed to your server (optional, but needed for SSL)
Your Quasar + Laravel project pushed to a Git repository (GitHub, GitLab, etc.)
A local SSH key pair or the ability to generate one

ℹ️

This guide assumes a single-server deployment. For production at scale, consider separating the database (RDS) and using S3 + CloudFront for the frontend.

STEP 02Launch EC2 Instance

2.1 Choose Your Instance

Go to the EC2 Dashboard → Launch Instance:

AMI: Ubuntu Server 22.04 LTS (HVM)
Instance type: t2.small (minimum for Laravel + MySQL) or t3.medium for comfort
Key pair: Create or select an existing one
VPC: Use the default VPC

2.2 Security Group Rules

Type	Port	Source	Purpose
SSH	22	Your IP	Server access
HTTP	80	0.0.0.0/0	Web traffic
HTTPS	443	0.0.0.0/0	Secure traffic

2.3 Connect to Your Instance

terminal

# Set permissions on your key
chmod 400 your-key.pem

# SSH into the instance
ssh -i "your-key.pem" ubuntu@<your-ec2-public-ip>

STEP 03Install Dependencies

Update the system and install everything we need in one go:

terminal — install stack

# Update system packages
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

# Install Nginx, Git, Curl, Unzip
sudo apt install -y nginx git curl unzip software-properties-common

# Add PHP 8.2 repository
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php -y
sudo apt update

# Install PHP 8.2 + extensions for Laravel
sudo apt install -y php8.2-fpm php8.2-mysql php8.2-mbstring \
  php8.2-xml php8.2-curl php8.2-zip php8.2-bcmath php8.2-gd

# Install Composer
curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php
sudo mv composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer

# Install Node.js 20 (for building Quasar)
curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_20.x | sudo bash -
sudo apt install -y nodejs

✅

Verify installations: php -v, composer --version, node -v, nginx -v

STEP 04Set Up MySQL

terminal — MySQL setup

# Install MySQL 8
sudo apt install -y mysql-server

# Secure the installation
sudo mysql_secure_installation

# Create database and user
sudo mysql

CREATE DATABASE myapp_db;
CREATE USER 'myapp_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'StrongPassword123!';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON myapp_db.* TO 'myapp_user'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

⚠️

Replace StrongPassword123! with an actual secure password. Never use this in production!

STEP 05Deploy Laravel Backend

terminal — Laravel deployment

# Clone your project
cd /var/www
sudo git clone https://github.com/you/your-project.git myapp
cd myapp/backend  # or wherever your Laravel code lives

# Set ownership
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/myapp
sudo chmod -R 775 storage bootstrap/cache

# Install dependencies
composer install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader

# Configure environment
cp .env.example .env
nano .env

5.1 Configure .env

.env

APP_ENV=production
APP_DEBUG=false
APP_URL=https://yourdomain.com

DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=myapp_db
DB_USERNAME=myapp_user
DB_PASSWORD=StrongPassword123!

terminal — finalize Laravel

# Generate app key and run migrations
php artisan key:generate
php artisan migrate --force
php artisan config:cache
php artisan route:cache
php artisan view:cache

STEP 06Deploy Quasar Frontend

You can either build locally and upload, or build on the server:

terminal — build Quasar

# Navigate to frontend directory
cd /var/www/myapp/frontend

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Build for production (SPA mode)
npx quasar build

# The build output goes to dist/spa/
# We'll point Nginx here

💡

Make sure your Quasar app's API base URL points to /api (relative) so Nginx can proxy it to Laravel. Update quasar.config.js or your axios config accordingly.

STEP 07Configure Nginx

This is the crucial part — Nginx serves the Quasar SPA and proxies API requests to Laravel via PHP-FPM:

/etc/nginx/sites-available/myapp

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name yourdomain.com;

    # Quasar SPA (frontend)
    root /var/www/myapp/frontend/dist/spa;
    index index.html;

    # SPA fallback — all routes go to index.html
    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.html;
    }

    # Laravel API — proxy /api requests to PHP-FPM
    location /api {
        alias /var/www/myapp/backend/public;
        try_files $uri $uri/ @laravel;

        location ~ \.php$ {
            include fastcgi_params;
            fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php8.2-fpm.sock;
            fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $request_filename;
        }
    }

    location @laravel {
        rewrite /api/(.*)$ /api/index.php?/$1 last;
    }

    # Security headers
    add_header X-Frame-Options "SAMEORIGIN";
    add_header X-Content-Type-Options "nosniff";

    # Gzip compression
    gzip on;
    gzip_types text/plain text/css application/json application/javascript;
}

terminal — enable site

# Enable the site
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/myapp /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

# Remove default site
sudo rm /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default

# Test config and reload
sudo nginx -t
sudo systemctl reload nginx

STEP 08SSL with Let's Encrypt

terminal — SSL setup

# Install Certbot
sudo apt install -y certbot python3-certbot-nginx

# Get SSL certificate
sudo certbot --nginx -d yourdomain.com

# Auto-renewal is set up automatically
# Test it with:
sudo certbot renew --dry-run

STEP 09Troubleshooting

Common Issues

500 Internal Server Error

Check Laravel logs: tail -f /var/www/myapp/backend/storage/logs/laravel.log

Usually caused by missing .env, wrong permissions, or missing PHP extensions.

403 Forbidden

Fix ownership: sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/myapp

API returns 404

Check Nginx config — make sure the /api location block is correct and nginx -t passes.

Quasar routes show blank page

Ensure the try_files directive falls back to /index.html for SPA routing.

Database connection refused

Verify MySQL is running: sudo systemctl status mysql. Check .env credentials match what you created in Step 4.

🚀

You're live! Visit your EC2 public IP or domain. Your Quasar frontend should load, and API calls to /api/* should hit Laravel.

STEP 01Prerequisites

STEP 02Launch EC2 Instance

2.1 Choose Your Instance

2.2 Security Group Rules

2.3 Connect to Your Instance

STEP 03Install Dependencies

STEP 04Set Up MySQL

STEP 05Deploy Laravel Backend

5.1 Configure .env

STEP 06Deploy Quasar Frontend

STEP 07Configure Nginx

STEP 08SSL with Let's Encrypt

STEP 09Troubleshooting

Common Issues

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