Virtualization – Code Rant

Creating REST API Example with Laravel 5

This walkthrough should work on a VM described here

Assuming Database configuration is already set

in app/config/database.php or .env file

cd /var/www/dev1.local/laravel

Create Database Migration

In this example I decided to create a Courses table

php artisan make:migration create_courses_table --create=courses

Navigate with SFTP to /var/www/dev1.local/laravel/database/migrations

Edit the created file 2015_11_10_152128_create_courses_table.php and add the required fields.

Adding fields for example, Course name, Classroom, Teacher

$table->string(‘course_name’);
$table->string(‘classroom’);
$table->string(‘teacher’);

Create Models folder in /var/www/dev1.local/laravel/app

mkdir /var/www/dev1.local/laravel/app/Models

Create Course Model

sudo vi mkdir /var/www/dev1.local/laravel/app/Models/Course.php

Seeding the Database

cd /var/www/dev1.local/laravel/database/seeds

sudo vi CoursestTableSeeder.php

vi /var/www/dev1.local/laravel/database/seeds/DatabaseSeeder.php

composer dump-autoload

php artisan clear-compiled

Run php artisan db:seed

Course Controller

php artisan make:controller CourseController

sudo vi /var/www/dev1.local/laravel/app/Http/Controllers/CourseController.php

Implementing the Controller

Add the following uses at the top

use DB;
use Response;
use Input;
use App\Models\Course;

Implementing some of the actions. Index, Store, Show, Delete

public function index()
{
return Response::json(Course::get());
}

public function store()
{
Course::create(array(
‘teacher’ => Input::get(‘teacher’),
‘classroom’ => Input::get(‘classroom’),
‘course_name’ => Input::get(‘course_name’)
));
return Response::json(array(‘success’ => true));
}

public function show($id)
{
$course = Course::find($id);
if(!isset($course)){
return $this->respondNotFound(‘Course does not exist’);
}
return $this->respond([
‘data’ => $this->transform($course)
]);
}

Creating Routes

sudo vi /var/www/dev1.local/laravel/app/Http/routes.php

Add

Route::group([‘prefix’ => ‘/api/v1’], function()
{
Route::resource(‘course’, ‘CourseController’ );
});

save and execute

php artisan route:list

Testing the API

http://dev1.local/index.php/api/v1/courses

http://dev1.local/api/v1/courses

Next Post is about Creating Angular based Front-end to consume the above API

Installing CentOS 7, Configuring Virtual Hosts and install Laravel 5 on each host

Download CentOS 7 ISO file mount it and create a VM in Virtualbox and boot

Select the following:

Simple webserver
PHP

yum install php-common

Open Firewall for Apache and register as service

firewall-cmd –permanent –add-service=http

firewall-cmd –reload

sudo systemctl enable httpd

Install MariaDB and register as service

Check if installed

rpm -qa | grep mariadb

yum install mariadb-server

sudo systemctl enable mariadb.service

mysql

> grant all on *.* to ‘sgalea’@’%’ identified by ‘bitnami’ with grant option;

quit

sudo vi /etc/my.cnf

[mysqld]

skip-grant-tables

Enable External connections to the database

firewall-cmd –permanent –add-service=mysql

firewall-cmd –reload

yum -y install php-mysql

Install SFTP and enable as service

yum -y update

yum -y install vsftpd

Conf location: /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf

sudo systemctl enable vsftpd

firewall-cmd –permanent –add-port=21/tcp

firewall-cmd –reload

Creating Virtual Hosts Settings

mkdir /etc/httpd/sites-available

mkdir /etc/httpd/sites-enabled

sudo vi /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

Put the following at the end of file

IncludeOptional sites-enabled/*.conf

Esc :wq

Create a file per virtual host in /etc/httpd/sites-available

sudo vi /etc/httpd/sites-available/dev1.local.conf

<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName dev1.local
ServerAlias dev1.local
DocumentRoot /var/www/dev1.local/laravel/public
ErrorLog /var/www/dev1.local/logs/error.log
CustomLog /var/www/dev1.local/logs/requests.log combined
</VirtualHost>

sudo vi /etc/httpd/sites-available/dev2.local.conf

<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName dev2.local
ServerAlias dev2.local
DocumentRoot /var/www/dev2.local/laravel/public
ErrorLog /var/www/dev2.local/logs/error.log
CustomLog /var/www/dev2.local/logs/requests.log combined
</VirtualHost>

sudo vi /etc/httpd/sites-available/dev3.local.conf

<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName dev3.local
ServerAlias dev3.local
DocumentRoot /var/www/dev3.local/laravel/public
ErrorLog /var/www/dev3.local/logs/error.log
CustomLog /var/www/dev3.local/logs/requests.log combined
</VirtualHost>

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-set-up-apache-virtual-hosts-on-centos-7

Enabling the hosts

sudo ln -s /etc/httpd/sites-available/dev1.local.conf /etc/httpd/sites-enabled/dev1.local.conf
sudo ln -s /etc/httpd/sites-available/dev2.local.conf /etc/httpd/sites-enabled/dev2.local.conf
sudo ln -s /etc/httpd/sites-available/dev3.local.conf /etc/httpd/sites-enabled/dev3.local.conf

Create folders

mkdir /var/www/dev1.local

mkdir /var/www/dev2.local

mkdir /var/www/dev3.local

sudo chmod -R 775 /var/www

Install Composer Globally

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

Install Laravel Dependencies

ext-mbstring
sudo yum install php-mbstring

ext-mcrypt

wget http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/7/x86_64/e/epel-release-7-5.noarch.rpm

rpm -ivh epel-release-7-5.noarch.rpm

yum install php-mcrypt*

Install Laravel

navigate to the folder where one wishes to install it in my case

cd /var/www/dev1.local
composer create-project laravel/laravel –prefer-dist

cd /var/www/dev2.local
composer create-project laravel/laravel –prefer-dist

cd /var/www/dev3.local
composer create-project laravel/laravel –prefer-dist

Storage Folder needs write permissions in SELinux

su -c "chcon -R -h -t httpd_sys_script_rw_t /var/www/dev1.local/laravel/storage/"

su -c "chcon -R -h -t httpd_sys_script_rw_t /var/www/dev2.local/laravel/storage/"

su -c "chcon -R -h -t httpd_sys_script_rw_t /var/www/dev3.local/laravel/storage/"

chmod -R 777 /var/www/dev1.local/laravel/storage/

chmod -R 777 /var/www/dev2.local/laravel/storage/

chmod -R 777 /var/www/dev3.local/laravel/storage/

Not sure if 777 is a good idea here

We need a location for logs

mkdir /var/www/dev1.local/logs

su -c "chcon -R -h -t httpd_sys_script_rw_t /var/www/dev1.local/logs/"

mkdir /var/www/dev2.local/logs

su -c "chcon -R -h -t httpd_sys_script_rw_t /var/www/dev2.local/logs/"

mkdir /var/www/dev3.local/logs

su -c "chcon -R -h -t httpd_sys_script_rw_t /var/www/dev3.local/logs/"

sudo systemctl restart httpd.service

Check virtualhosts

httpd -S

Add virtual hosts in host file on your host OS

On windows: C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc

edit host file as Administrator

192.168.101.12 dev1.local
192.168.101.12 dev2.local
192.168.101.12 dev3.local

Where 192.168.101.12 is the IP of your Virtual Machine running CentOS 7

Remove index.php from the url

sudo vi /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

Change to:

AllowOverride All

Things required while debugging issues:

While debugging try without SELinux

Disable:

setenforce 0

Enable:

setenforce 1

These are not permanent they will be reset to default status after reboot.

Search string in file

grep -R ‘string’ dir/

Find IP

ip addr

Changing IP of the VM

sudo dhclient -r

sudo dhclient

__________________________________________________________________

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17954625/services-json-failed-to-open-stream-permission-denied-in-laravel-4

Errorlogs location causes htttpd not reload

http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/175558/apache-wont-restart-after-adding-virtualhost-conf-file-why-not

Blankscreen issue

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/20678360/laravel-blank-white-screen

ServerSetup

http://www.hexblot.com/blog/centos-7-server-installation

Next Post is about creating a REST API on Laravel 5 which can be found here

Configuring Laravel 5, FTP and MySQL on Bitnami LAMP Stack for Development

At the time of writing the Stack is running on Ubuntu 14.04 which can be downloaded from here. Since it is 64Bit make sure that Visualization is enabled in the bios settings.

Import the VM in VMware Player or Virtual box, make sure that the network settings are configured correctly so that the VM gets an IP accessible from the host machine. I personally configured it to Bridged Adapter for this exercise and have a habit of Regenerating the MAC Address.

If the VM does not get assigned an IP the configuration is wrong and I wouldn’t bother trying to fix it from inside the VM (you could) but I rather fix it from the hyper-visor settings because the stack is pre-configured to work.

Bitnami LAMP Stack with indication of IP

Visit the IP in the browser to check if it is working in my case http://192.168.101.12

Enabling Laravel

Bitnami LAMP Stack comes with several pre-configured frameworks of which all are disabled by default. One must enable the framework that is required. ( I am nto sure if you can enable more than one at the same time)

Steps:

cd /opt/bitnami/apache2/conf/bitnami

sudo vi bitnami-apps-prefix.conf

Remove the hash from laravel’s line and save and close :wq

Restart Apache

sudo /opt/bitnami/ctlscript.sh restart apache

The location where Laravel apps Live is

/opt/bitnami/frameworks/laravel/app/http

Browser URL

http://192.168.101.12/laravel/ where 192.168.101.12 is your VM’s IP

Configuring FTP

Enabling FTP for easy editing/upload of files ( Note this is a development machine for experimentation so I will not go on explaining issues with FTP and security, but you should consider reading about the risks. )

sudo vi /etc/vsftpd.conf

go to the bottom of the file and change

listen_address=127.0.0.1

listen_address=0.0.0.0

:wq

Listen on every available network interface

Allow connections to port 21 (FTP port)

sudo ufw allow 21

Restart FTP

sudo service vsftpd restart

Change bitnamiftp password

sudo passwd bitnamiftp

Configure Filezilla

Connected

Now you may play around with Laravel through FTP 🙂

Let external connections to MySQL

cd /opt/bitnami/mysql

sudo vi my.cnf

Comment out

bind-address = 127.0.0.1

by putting a # infront of it and Esc :wq

Modifying my.cnf to allow external connections

mysql -u root -p

grant all privileges on *.* to 'root'@'%' identified by 'password' with grant option

restart mysql

cd /opt/bitnami

sudo ./ctlscript.sh restart mysql

Open Port in firewall

sudo ufw allow 3306

Resizing a Fixed Virtual Machine VHD (VirtualBox)

Resizing a Fixed disk

Resizing can only be done on dynamically allocated disks. So one must first convert the disk to dynamic then resize.

In reality there is no way to change between Fixed-size and dynamic disks. However one may clone the existing Virtual Machine form one format to the other. This works with VHD (Virtual Hard Disk) format

The tool one needs for the said conversion and resizing is VBoxManage.exe and this can be found in:

C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox

Dynamic to fixed Cloning

VBoxManage clonehd [Current_VHD] [New-VHD] –variant Fixed

Fixed to Dynamic Cloning

VBoxManage clonehd [Current_VHD] [New-VHD] –variant Standard

Resizing

VBoxManage modifyhd [New-VHD] –resize [megabytes]

Note that resizing only works with increasing the size