Laravel - move index.php file in project/public

Question

I am hosting my Laravel project on shared hosting where I don't have access to modify the apache config to look for the index file in /public .

I've also tried adding DirectoryIndex index.html to my .htaccess file at the place where the hosting is looking for the index.php file.

This does not work.

That being said, I think I can solve the problem if I simply move the index.php file out of /public (where Laravel has it by default) to the root where the hosting is looking for it.

That being said, what do I need to modify in this index.php file to allow the Laravel app to work?

My structure is:

public_html/ <-- where my files are served from and where index.php should be 
    my-project/
           public/
               index.php <-- where Laravel expects index.php to be to bootstrap the app

Answer 1

Okay here we go:

Let's say this is your folder structure:

MyUser/
   public_html/
       public/

What you want to do is:

---

Step 1. create a folder on the same level as public_html named laravel (or something to your liking):

MyUser/
   laravel/
   public_html/
       public/

---

Step 2. upload ALL your laravel code to the laravel folder. Your code is now inaccessible through a web browser.

---

Step 3. Next, you copy all data from MyUser/Laravel/public to MyUser/public_html . Now we're getting somewhere. Warning: Don't forget to copy the .htaccess file too

---

Step 4. open MyUser/public_html/index.php in your favorite editor and change

$app = require __DIR__.'/../bootstrap/app.php';

to:

$app = require __DIR__.'/../laravel/bootstrap/app.php';

and change:

require __DIR__.'/../bootstrap/autoload.php'

to:

require __DIR__.'/../laravel/bootstrap/autoload.php'

---

Step 5. Now, since your storage directory is outside of your public_html , it'll most likely not be accessible, so CHMOD that to 777, and you're done!

---

A small tip:

See if you can create a symlink from MyUser/laravel/public to MyUser/public_html . That'll let you skip step 3 and 4.

Hope this helped.