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Railpack Docs

PHP

Railpack can automatically build and deploy PHP applications with Nginx and PHP-FPM.

Detection

Your project will be detected as a PHP application if any of these conditions are met:

  • An index.php file exists in the root directory
  • A composer.json file exists in the root directory

Versions

The PHP version is determined in the following order:

  • Read from the composer.json file
  • Defaults to 8.4.3

Configuration

Railpack will configure Nginx and PHP-FPM for your application. For Laravel applications, the document root is set to the public directory.

Config Variables

VariableDescriptionExample
RAILPACK_PHP_ROOT_DIROverride the document root for Nginx/app/public

Custom Configuration

Railpack uses a custom Nginx config file and PHP-FPM config file. You can overwrite these files with your own configuration files in your project root.

Laravel Support

Laravel applications are detected by the presence of an artisan file. When detected:

  • The document root is set to the /app/public directory
  • Storage directory permissions are set to be writable
  • Composer dependencies are installed

Node.js Integration

If a package.json file is detected in your PHP project:

  • Node.js will be installed
  • NPM dependencies will be installed
  • Build scripts defined in package.json will be executed
  • Development dependencies will be pruned in the final image

This is particularly useful for Laravel applications that use frontend frameworks like Vue.js or React.

You can see the node docs for information on how to configure node.