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Laravel Sail

Introduction

Laravel Sail is a light-weight command-line interface for interacting with Laravel's default Docker development environment. Sail provides a great starting point for building a Laravel application using PHP, MySQL, and Redis without requiring prior Docker experience.

At its heart, Sail is the docker-compose.yml file and the sail script that is stored at the root of your project. The sail script provides a CLI with convenient methods for interacting with the Docker containers defined by the docker-compose.yml file.

Laravel Sail is supported on macOS, Linux, and Windows (via WSL2).

Installation & Setup

Laravel Sail is automatically installed with all new Laravel applications so you may start using it immediately. To learn how to create a new Laravel application, please consult Laravel's installation documentation for your operating system. During installation, you will be asked to choose which Sail supported services your application will be interacting with.

Installing Sail Into Existing Applications

If you are interested in using Sail with an existing Laravel application, you may simply install Sail using the Composer package manager. Of course, these steps assume that your existing local development environment allows you to install Composer dependencies:

composer require laravel/sail --dev

After Sail has been installed, you may run the sail:install Artisan command. This command will publish Sail's docker-compose.yml file to the root of your application:

php artisan sail:install

Finally, you may start Sail. To continue learning how to use Sail, please continue reading the remainder of this documentation:

./vendor/bin/sail up

Using Devcontainers

If you would like to develop within a Devcontainer, you may provide the --devcontainer option to the sail:install command. The --devcontainer option will instruct the sail:install command to publish a default .devcontainer/devcontainer.json file to the root of your application:

php artisan sail:install --devcontainer

Configuring A Shell Alias

By default, Sail commands are invoked using the vendor/bin/sail script that is included with all new Laravel applications:

./vendor/bin/sail up

However, instead of repeatedly typing vendor/bin/sail to execute Sail commands, you may wish to configure a shell alias that allows you to execute Sail's commands more easily:

alias sail='[ -f sail ] && sh sail || sh vendor/bin/sail'

To make sure this is always available, you may add this to your shell configuration file in your home directory, such as ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc, and then restart your shell.

Once the shell alias has been configured, you may execute Sail commands by simply typing sail. The remainder of this documentation's examples will assume that you have configured this alias:

sail up

Starting & Stopping Sail

Laravel Sail's docker-compose.yml file defines a variety of Docker containers that work together to help you build Laravel applications. Each of these containers is an entry within the services configuration of your docker-compose.yml file. The laravel.test container is the primary application container that will be serving your application.

Before starting Sail, you should ensure that no other web servers or databases are running on your local computer. To start all of the Docker containers defined in your application's docker-compose.yml file, you should execute the up command:

sail up

To start all of the Docker containers in the background, you may start Sail in "detached" mode:

sail up -d

Once the application's containers have been started, you may access the project in your web browser at: http://localhost.

To stop all of the containers, you may simply press Control + C to stop the container's execution. Or, if the containers are running in the background, you may use the stop command:

sail stop

Executing Commands

When using Laravel Sail, your application is executing within a Docker container and is isolated from your local computer. However, Sail provides a convenient way to run various commands against your application such as arbitrary PHP commands, Artisan commands, Composer commands, and Node / NPM commands.

When reading the Laravel documentation, you will often see references to Composer, Artisan, and Node / NPM commands that do not reference Sail. Those examples assume that these tools are installed on your local computer. If you are using Sail for your local Laravel development environment, you should execute those commands using Sail:

# Running Artisan commands locally...
php artisan queue:work
 
# Running Artisan commands within Laravel Sail...
sail artisan queue:work

Executing PHP Commands

PHP commands may be executed using the php command. Of course, these commands will execute using the PHP version that is configured for your application. To learn more about the PHP versions available to Laravel Sail, consult the PHP version documentation:

sail php --version
 
sail php script.php

Executing Composer Commands

Composer commands may be executed using the composer command. Laravel Sail's application container includes a Composer 2.x installation:

sail composer require laravel/sanctum

Installing Composer Dependencies For Existing Applications

If you are developing an application with a team, you may not be the one that initially creates the Laravel application. Therefore, none of the application's Composer dependencies, including Sail, will be installed after you clone the application's repository to your local computer.

You may install the application's dependencies by navigating to the application's directory and executing the following command. This command uses a small Docker container containing PHP and Composer to install the application's dependencies:

docker run --rm \
    -u "$(id -u):$(id -g)" \
    -v $(pwd):/var/www/html \
    -w /var/www/html \
    laravelsail/php81-composer:latest \
    composer install --ignore-platform-reqs

When using the laravelsail/phpXX-composer image, you should use the same version of PHP that you plan to use for your application (74, 80, or 81).

Executing Artisan Commands

Laravel Artisan commands may be executed using the artisan command:

sail artisan queue:work

Executing Node / NPM Commands

Node commands may be executed using the node command while NPM commands may be executed using the npm command:

sail node --version
 
sail npm run dev

If you wish, you may use Yarn instead of NPM:

sail yarn

Interacting With Databases

MySQL

As you may have noticed, your application's docker-compose.yml file contains an entry for a MySQL container. This container uses a Docker volume so that the data stored in your database is persisted even when stopping and restarting your containers.

In addition, the first time the MySQL container starts, it will create two databases for you. The first database is named using the value of your DB_DATABASE environment variable and is for your local development. The second is a dedicated testing database named testing and will ensure that your tests do not interfere with your development data.

Once you have started your containers, you may connect to the MySQL instance within your application by setting your DB_HOST environment variable within your application's .env file to mysql.

To connect to your application's MySQL database from your local machine, you may use a graphical database management application such as TablePlus. By default, the MySQL database is accessible at localhost port 3306.

Redis

Your application's docker-compose.yml file also contains an entry for a Redis container. This container uses a Docker volume so that the data stored in your Redis data is persisted even when stopping and restarting your containers. Once you have started your containers, you may connect to the Redis instance within your application by setting your REDIS_HOST environment variable within your application's .env file to redis.

To connect to your application's Redis database from your local machine, you may use a graphical database management application such as TablePlus. By default, the Redis database is accessible at localhost port 6379.

MeiliSearch

If you chose to install the MeiliSearch service when installing Sail, your application's docker-compose.yml file will contain an entry for this powerful search-engine that is compatible with Laravel Scout. Once you have started your containers, you may connect to the MeiliSearch instance within your application by setting your MEILISEARCH_HOST environment variable to http://meilisearch:7700.

From your local machine, you may access MeiliSearch's web based administration panel by navigating to http://localhost:7700 in your web browser.

File Storage

If you plan to use Amazon S3 to store files while running your application in its production environment, you may wish to install the MinIO service when installing Sail. MinIO provides an S3 compatible API that you may use to develop locally using Laravel's s3 file storage driver without creating "test" storage buckets in your production S3 environment. If you choose to install MinIO while installing Sail, a MinIO configuration section will be added to your application's docker-compose.yml file.

By default, your application's filesystems configuration file already contains a disk configuration for the s3 disk. In addition to using this disk to interact with Amazon S3, you may use it to interact with any S3 compatible file storage service such as MinIO by simply modifying the associated environment variables that control its configuration. For example, when using MinIO, your filesystem environment variable configuration should be defined as follows:

FILESYSTEM_DISK=s3
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=sail
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=password
AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=us-east-1
AWS_BUCKET=local
AWS_ENDPOINT=http://minio:9000
AWS_USE_PATH_STYLE_ENDPOINT=true

In order for Laravel's Flysystem integration to generate proper URLs when using MinIO, you should define the AWS_URL environment variable so that it matches your application's local URL and includes the bucket name in the URL path:

AWS_URL=http://localhost:9000/local

You may create buckets via the MinIO console, which is available at http://localhost:8900. The default username for the MinIO console is sail while the default password is password.

Warning
Generating temporary storage URLs via the temporaryUrl method is not supported when using MinIO.

Running Tests

Laravel provides amazing testing support out of the box, and you may use Sail's test command to run your applications feature and unit tests. Any CLI options that are accepted by PHPUnit may also be passed to the test command:

sail test
 
sail test --group orders

The Sail test command is equivalent to running the test Artisan command:

sail artisan test

By default, Sail will create a dedicated testing database so that your tests do not interfere with the current state of your database. In a default Laravel installation, Sail will also configure your phpunit.xml file to use this database when executing your tests:

<env name="DB_DATABASE" value="testing"/>

Laravel Dusk

Laravel Dusk provides an expressive, easy-to-use browser automation and testing API. Thanks to Sail, you may run these tests without ever installing Selenium or other tools on your local computer. To get started, uncomment the Selenium service in your application's docker-compose.yml file:

selenium:
    image: 'selenium/standalone-chrome'
    volumes:
        - '/dev/shm:/dev/shm'
    networks:
        - sail

Next, ensure that the laravel.test service in your application's docker-compose.yml file has a depends_on entry for selenium:

depends_on:
    - mysql
    - redis
    - selenium

Finally, you may run your Dusk test suite by starting Sail and running the dusk command:

sail dusk

Selenium On Apple Silicon

If your local machine contains an Apple Silicon chip, your selenium service must use the seleniarm/standalone-chromium image:

selenium:
    image: 'seleniarm/standalone-chromium'
    volumes:
        - '/dev/shm:/dev/shm'
    networks:
        - sail

Previewing Emails

Laravel Sail's default docker-compose.yml file contains a service entry for MailHog. MailHog intercepts emails sent by your application during local development and provides a convenient web interface so that you can preview your email messages in your browser. When using Sail, MailHog's default host is mailhog and is available via port 1025:

MAIL_HOST=mailhog
MAIL_PORT=1025
MAIL_ENCRYPTION=null

When Sail is running, you may access the MailHog web interface at: http://localhost:8025

Container CLI

Sometimes you may wish to start a Bash session within your application's container. You may use the shell command to connect to your application's container, allowing you to inspect its files and installed services as well execute arbitrary shell commands within the container:

sail shell
 
sail root-shell

To start a new Laravel Tinker session, you may execute the tinker command:

sail tinker

PHP Versions

Sail currently supports serving your application via PHP 8.1, PHP 8.0, or PHP 7.4. The default PHP version used by Sail is currently PHP 8.1. To change the PHP version that is used to serve your application, you should update the build definition of the laravel.test container in your application's docker-compose.yml file:

# PHP 8.1
context: ./vendor/laravel/sail/runtimes/8.1
 
# PHP 8.0
context: ./vendor/laravel/sail/runtimes/8.0
 
# PHP 7.4
context: ./vendor/laravel/sail/runtimes/7.4

In addition, you may wish to update your image name to reflect the version of PHP being used by your application. This option is also defined in your application's docker-compose.yml file:

image: sail-8.1/app

After updating your application's docker-compose.yml file, you should rebuild your container images:

sail build --no-cache
 
sail up

Node Versions

Sail installs Node 16 by default. To change the Node version that is installed when building your images, you may update the build.args definition of the laravel.test service in your application's docker-compose.yml file:

build:
    args:
        WWWGROUP: '${WWWGROUP}'
        NODE_VERSION: '14'

After updating your application's docker-compose.yml file, you should rebuild your container images:

sail build --no-cache
 
sail up

Sharing Your Site

Sometimes you may need to share your site publicly in order to preview your site for a colleague or to test webhook integrations with your application. To share your site, you may use the share command. After executing this command, you will be issued a random laravel-sail.site URL that you may use to access your application:

sail share

When sharing your site via the share command, you should configure your application's trusted proxies within the TrustProxies middleware. Otherwise, URL generation helpers such as url and route will be unable to determine the correct HTTP host that should be used during URL generation:

/**
 * The trusted proxies for this application.
 *
 * @var array|string|null
 */
protected $proxies = '*';

If you would like to choose the subdomain for your shared site, you may provide the subdomain option when executing the share command:

sail share --subdomain=my-sail-site

Note
The share command is powered by Expose, an open source tunneling service by BeyondCode.

Debugging With Xdebug

Laravel Sail's Docker configuration includes support for Xdebug, a popular and powerful debugger for PHP. In order to enable Xdebug, you will need to add a few variables to your application's .env file to configure Xdebug. To enable Xdebug you must set the appropriate mode(s) before starting Sail:

SAIL_XDEBUG_MODE=develop,debug,coverage

Linux Host IP Configuration

Internally, the XDEBUG_CONFIG environment variable is defined as client_host=host.docker.internal so that Xdebug will be properly configured for Mac and Windows (WSL2). If your local machine is running Linux, you should ensure that you are running Docker Engine 17.06.0+ and Compose 1.16.0+. Otherwise, you will need to manually define this environment variable as shown below.

First, you should determine the correct host IP address to add to the environment variable by running the following command. Typically, the <container-name> should be the name of the container that serves your application and often ends with _laravel.test_1:

docker inspect -f {{range.NetworkSettings.Networks}}{{.Gateway}}{{end}} <container-name>

Once you have obtained the correct host IP address, you should define the SAIL_XDEBUG_CONFIG variable within your application's .env file:

SAIL_XDEBUG_CONFIG="client_host=<host-ip-address>"

Xdebug CLI Usage

A sail debug command may be used to start a debugging session when running an Artisan command:

# Run an Artisan command without Xdebug...
sail artisan migrate
 
# Run an Artisan command with Xdebug...
sail debug migrate

Xdebug Browser Usage

To debug your application while interacting with the application via a web browser, follow the instructions provided by Xdebug for initiating an Xdebug session from the web browser.

If you're using PhpStorm, please review JetBrain's documentation regarding zero-configuration debugging.

Warning
Laravel Sail relies on artisan serve to serve your application. The artisan serve command only accepts the XDEBUG_CONFIG and XDEBUG_MODE variables as of Laravel version 8.53.0. Older versions of Laravel (8.52.0 and below) do not support these variables and will not accept debug connections.

Customization

Since Sail is just Docker, you are free to customize nearly everything about it. To publish Sail's own Dockerfiles, you may execute the sail:publish command:

sail artisan sail:publish

After running this command, the Dockerfiles and other configuration files used by Laravel Sail will be placed within a docker directory in your application's root directory. After customizing your Sail installation, you may wish to change the image name for the application container in your application's docker-compose.yml file. After doing so, rebuild your application's containers using the build command. Assigning a unique name to the application image is particularly important if you are using Sail to develop multiple Laravel applications on a single machine:

sail build --no-cache