Laravel - custom .env file

Question

Laravel assumes that .env file should describe environment, and it should not be committed to your repo.

What if I want to keep both .env f

Answer 1

I like to add a solution for people who have a shared codebase for many vhosts that all need different .env files for all the different things, like database connections, smtp settings etc.

For every vhost, on Apache, create a vhost config:

    ServerName your-vhost.yourdomain.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/shared-codebase/public

    SetEnv VHOST_NAME 'your-vhost'

    
    Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride all
    Order deny,allow
    Require all granted
    

    
       AssignUserId your-vhost your-vhost
    

    ErrorLog /var/www/your-vhost/logs/error.log
    CustomLog /var/www/your-vhost/logs/access.log combined

All vhosts have the same document root and directory, because it is a shared codebase. Inside the config we added a SetEnv VHOST_NAME 'your-vhost' which we will later use in Laravel's bootstrap.php to change the location of vhost specific .env.

Next create the custom .env file in a folder(fe. /var/www/your-vhost/.env) the alter bootstrap.php so that it loads the .env from the right location.

singleton(
    Illuminate\Contracts\Http\Kernel::class,
    App\Http\Kernel::class
);

$app->singleton(
    Illuminate\Contracts\Console\Kernel::class,
    App\Console\Kernel::class
);

$app->singleton(
    Illuminate\Contracts\Debug\ExceptionHandler::class,
    App\Exceptions\Handler::class
);

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Add the location of the custom env file
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
*/    
$app->useEnvironmentPath('/var/www/'.$_SERVER['VHOST_NAME']);

return $app;

That's all.

[edit] I you want to target a specific database or want to generate a key for a specific .env, then you should put the VHOST_NAME in front of the artisan command.

VHOST_NAME=tenant2.domain.com php artisan key:generate

[edit] When working locally and are using Laravel Valet, then you can add a custom .valet-env.php in the root of your codebase. https://laravel.com/docs/master/valet#site-specific-environment-variables