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Production Setup

This guide covers deploying TryPost to a production environment.

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Environment Configuration

Set these values in your .env for production: 
APP_ENV=production
APP_DEBUG=false
APP_URL=https://your-domain.com

SELF_HOSTED=true

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Optimizations

Run these commands after deployment: 
# Cache configuration
php artisan config:cache

# Cache routes
php artisan route:cache

# Cache views
php artisan view:cache

# Optimize autoloader
composer install --optimize-autoloader --no-dev

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Queue Worker

TryPost uses queues for critical background processing:
  • Publishing posts to social platforms at scheduled times
  • Sending notifications (email and in-app)
  • Verifying social account connections
  • Processing analytics events
Without a running queue worker, scheduled posts will not be published. Use Supervisor to keep the queue worker running.

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Install Supervisor

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt install supervisor

# CentOS/RHEL
sudo yum install supervisor

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Configure Supervisor

Create /etc/supervisor/conf.d/trypost-worker.conf: 
[program:trypost-horizon]
process_name=%(program_name)s
command=php /var/www/trypost/artisan horizon
autostart=true
autorestart=true
stopasgroup=true
killasgroup=true
user=www-data
redirect_stderr=true
stdout_logfile=/var/www/trypost/storage/logs/horizon.log
stopwaitsecs=3600
Then start it: 
sudo supervisorctl reread
sudo supervisorctl update
sudo supervisorctl start trypost-horizon

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Nginx Configuration

Example Nginx configuration: 
server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;
    server_name your-domain.com;
    return 301 https://$server_name$request_uri;
}

server {
    listen 443 ssl http2;
    listen [::]:443 ssl http2;
    server_name your-domain.com;

    root /var/www/trypost/public;
    index index.php;

    ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/your-domain.com/fullchain.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/your-domain.com/privkey.pem;

    add_header X-Frame-Options "SAMEORIGIN";
    add_header X-Content-Type-Options "nosniff";

    charset utf-8;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string;
    }

    location = /favicon.ico { access_log off; log_not_found off; }
    location = /robots.txt  { access_log off; log_not_found off; }

    error_page 404 /index.php;

    location ~ \.php$ {
        fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php8.4-fpm.sock;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $realpath_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        include fastcgi_params;
    }

    location ~ /\.(?!well-known).* {
        deny all;
    }

    client_max_body_size 2G;
}

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SSL Certificate

Use Let’s Encrypt for free SSL: 
sudo apt install certbot python3-certbot-nginx
sudo certbot --nginx -d your-domain.com

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Scheduled Tasks (Cron)

TryPost uses Laravel’s task scheduler for recurring jobs like dispatching scheduled posts and cleaning up expired tokens. The scheduler must run every minute or scheduled posts won’t be published on time. Add the Laravel scheduler to cron: 
crontab -e
Add this line: 
* * * * * cd /var/www/trypost && php artisan schedule:run >> /dev/null 2>&1
This is required. Without the cron job, scheduled posts will not be published automatically.

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WebSocket Server (Reverb)

TryPost uses Laravel Reverb for real-time updates in the dashboard (live post status changes, notifications). Add a Supervisor config to keep it running: Create /etc/supervisor/conf.d/trypost-reverb.conf: 
[program:trypost-reverb]
process_name=%(program_name)s
command=php /var/www/trypost/artisan reverb:start --host=0.0.0.0 --port=8080
autostart=true
autorestart=true
stopasgroup=true
killasgroup=true
user=www-data
redirect_stderr=true
stdout_logfile=/var/www/trypost/storage/logs/reverb.log
Then reload Supervisor: 
sudo supervisorctl reread
sudo supervisorctl update
sudo supervisorctl start trypost-reverb
In production, proxy WebSocket connections through Nginx with SSL. Add this to your Nginx config:
location /app {
    proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8080;
    proxy_http_version 1.1;
    proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
    proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
    proxy_set_header Host $host;
}

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File Permissions

Set correct permissions: 
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/trypost
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/trypost
sudo chmod -R 775 /var/www/trypost/storage
sudo chmod -R 775 /var/www/trypost/bootstrap/cache

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Checklist

Make sure all of these are running in production:
ServiceCommandPurpose
Horizonphp artisan horizonProcesses queues (post publishing, notifications)
Reverbphp artisan reverb:startReal-time WebSocket updates
Schedulerphp artisan schedule:run (cron)Dispatches scheduled posts
If any of these services are not running, TryPost will not function correctly. Scheduled posts won’t publish, notifications won’t send, and the dashboard won’t update in real time.

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Monitoring

Consider setting up monitoring for:
  • Server health (CPU, memory, disk)
  • Application errors (Laravel logs in storage/logs/)
  • Queue status (Horizon dashboard at /horizon)
  • WebSocket connections (Reverb logs in storage/logs/reverb.log)

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Backups

Regularly backup:
  • Database
  • .env file
  • Uploaded media (if using local storage)