Forem: Seong Bae

Website Maintenance

Seong Bae — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 11:40:19 +0000

I have a client who needs quarterly maintenance of their website built with Laravel. It is running on Ubuntu server hosted by Digital Ocean.

Below is what I do as part of the maintenance. Please feel free to provide feedback if you have any.

Create backups
Update server
Review server stats
Update Laravel framework and packages
Review firewall settings
Review logs

Details

1. Create backups

During the maintenance, I make a number of backups.

First backup is backup of the server. Since the site is hosted with Digital Ocean, I create a snapshot of the server. This allows me to safely revert should anything go wrong during the maintenance process.

Second backup is user-generated files on the website. This includes user profile photos, PDF documents uploaded, etc. On a Laravel website, these are usually stored on the /storage/app folder. So I create a backup of the entire app folder and send this to client.

tar -czf app.tar.gz app

Third backup is database. I also send this to client after backup is made

mysqldump -u username -p database > database.sql

The website codebase is hosted with github so there is no backup needed.

2. Update server

The client's website is running on a Ubuntu server. I update the server with following commands:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt dist-upgrade
sudo do-release-upgrade

The last command is only if I'm updating the OS to the latest major release.

3. Review server stats

After updating the server, I do a quick review of server performances from Digital Ocean's server dashboard. In particular, I'm looking at CPU%, Load, Memory, Disk I/O, Disk Usage, and Bandwidth for the last 14 days and see if there are any anomalies or if the server needs to be upgraded.

4. Update Laravel framework and packages

Next, I update Laravel framework and any third party packages used within the application.

For upgrading Laravel, I always reference the release schedule that shows when the security fixes will be available. Following is schedule taken from Laravel website.

As of today, 15 March 2026, Laravel 11 is supported through 11 March 2026. So if my application is running 11, I'd do a major upgrade to 12. If not, I just run "composer update" to bring all packages to latest.

5. Review firewall settings

Run following commands to see ufw status and what ports are open:

sudo ufw status verbose

6. Review logs

Lastly, I review logs for any anomalies or any attempts by unauthorized users to access the server. The logs include:

Laravel logs
Web server logs (access.log, error.log)
Activity logs within the app

That about sums up what I normally do for website/server maintenance. What do you guys think?

Seong

Upgrade Node on Laravel Forge

Seong Bae — Sun, 14 Dec 2025 12:20:58 +0000

sudo apt-get update --allow-releaseinfo-change && sudo apt-get install -y ca-certificates curl gnupg
sudo mkdir -p /etc/apt/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/gpgkey/nodesource-repo.gpg.key | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/nodesource.gpg
NODE_MAJOR=22
echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/nodesource.gpg] https://deb.nodesource.com/node_$NODE_MAJOR.x nodistro main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nodesource.list
sudo apt-get update --allow-releaseinfo-change && sudo apt-get install nodejs -y

Change NODE_MAJOR=22 to your desired version (e.g., 20 for Node 20).

MySQL Safe Update Mode

Seong Bae — Thu, 27 Nov 2025 00:08:59 +0000

I swear... I can never remember the syntax to change MySQL's safe update mode. I always have to google it.

To turn off safe update mode:

SET SQL_SAFE_UPDATES = 0;

Please remember to set it back to 1 after running your mass-update/mass-delete query.

SET SQL_SAFE_UPDATES = 1;

Safe coding!

Creating a clone of SSD

Seong Bae — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 05:03:12 +0000

Recently, I had a few instances where I needed to upgrade SSD on my laptops and computers because I was running out of space. These were usually 512gb SSD and I'd upgrade them to either 1TB or 2TB.

Part of the upgrade process is to clone the current SSD to a bigger SSD. For this, you will need two things: SSD enclosure and cloning software.

For SSD enclosure, below is what I have and it worked well. It is only $16.99 on Amazon.

For the cloning software, I used Macrium Reflect X Home. If you want to buy it, it's $50/year. But it comes with 30-day free trial which I used without any issues.

Using the above two, I was able to successfully upgrade my SSD from 512gb to 2TB in no time!

How I fixed 403 error in Laravel

Seong Bae — Wed, 10 Sep 2025 04:23:15 +0000

Recently, I had to set up a development environment on a new computer running on Ubuntu 24. I've done this thousand times and the business went as usual - installing LAMP, git, composer, etc. Then I downloaded an existing Laravel project from github to continue working on it. After setting up the project, when I went to url in browser, I saw "403 forbidden access" error. I've tried everything but what fixed the issue at the end was definitely not what I expected!

First, I double-checked my apache configuration file for any errors or wrong directives used:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
    ServerName mysite.test
    DocumentRoot /home/seongbae/projects/mysite/public

    <Directory "/home/seongbae/projects/mysite/public">
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
        Options FollowSymLinks
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    </Directory>

    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Everything looked good. All my other Laravel projects had similar apache configuration settings.

Next, I was curious if this has anything to do with apache rewrite module not being enabled. By default, on a fresh install of LAMP on Ubuntu, the rewrite module was not enabled. So I enabled it as following:

cd /etc/apache2/mods-available
a2enmod rewrite
service apache2 restart

That did not fix either.

Someone mentioned that the project should have .htaccess file that looks like following:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
    RewriteEngine on
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^public
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ public/$1 [L]
</IfModule>

That didn't fix.

Then I thought this has to be some type of permission issue...most likely the www-data user is not able to access the project folder which is located at /home/seongbae/projects folder. To test this theory, I created a Laravel project under apache root folder at /var/www/html. It worked! So I narrowed down the issue to incorrect permission setup.

So the next step I tried was following:

cd /home/seongbae/projects/mysite
sudo chown -R $USER:www-data .
sudo find . -type f -exec chmod 664 {} \;   
sudo find . -type d -exec chmod 775 {} \;
sudo chmod -R ug+rwx storage bootstrap/cache

Above basically gives www-data access to the site folder and changes permission for all folders and files so that www-data can access them. I also made sure that www-data can write to the storage and cache folders.

When the above didn't fix the issue, I was starting to pull my hair. I know I've set up new installation of Ubuntu thousands of times before and I've come across this issue. I've fixed it in the past... but I just could not remember how I fixed it. I must be getting old. Then I thought that if I ever fix this again, I must write a blog post for my future self.

Then I vaguely remembered that www-data must have access to parent folders as well.

/home/seongbae/projects/mysite
/home/seongbae/projects/
/home/seongbae

So one at a time, I changed the group for each of above parent folder and made sure www-data group user can access the folders:

sudo chgrp www-data folder
sudo chmod g+x folder

And when I changed group for all the above 3 parent folders, the 403 forbidden error went away!

I don't know why all the discussions and solutions I found on the net did not address fixing the permission of parent folders.

Hopefully this will help someone....and also future me from wasting too much time trying to fix the forbidden issue.

Getting dev laptop ready

Seong Bae — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 09:11:23 +0000

More often than not, I have to set up a new computer for development environment. Sometimes, I buy a new computer... other times, I try upgrading OS and it fails and I have to completely re-install OS (such as upgrading from Ubuntu 22 to 24 last week).

In either cases, I have to set up a new dev environment ready quickly. This includes installing LAMP to my favorite front-end development tools such as PhpStorm. I don't want to waste any time... within a couple of hours, my new computer should be ready for me to continue with development.

Below is a guide I created for myself on steps to get the new computer ready.

Install LAMP

I've written on installing LAMP on Ubuntu. Please reference this page.

Install Composer

sudo apt install php-cli unzip
sudo apt install curl
curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer -o /tmp/composer-setup.php
sudo php /tmp/composer-setup.php --install-dir=/usr/local/bin --filename=composer

After installing composer, don't forget to add composer vendor bin path to your PATH so that you can run commands like "laravel".

if [ -d "/home/your-user/.config/composer/vendor/bin" ] ; then
    PATH="/home/your-user/.config/composer/vendor/bin:$PATH"
fi

Install Git

sudo apt install git

Install Node & npm

sudo apt install nodejs
sudo apt install npm

Additionally, I use following desktop applications for development.

PhpStorm - for Laravel development
Mysql Workbench - for working with Mysql databases
Sublime - for editing simple files
Postman - for API testing and development
Slack - for communication with team

I think that's all I can remember for now. If I can think of anything else, I'll come back later to update the post.

Update on 9/11/2025

Add git credentials on your local computer so that you don't have to provide username and password every time you push or pull updates:

git config --global credential.helper store

Happy coding!

How to grant access to Firebase Cloud Messaging (v1 API)

Seong Bae — Sat, 02 Aug 2025 03:03:44 +0000

Create service account
Go to your Google Firebase Console, open a project you want to integrate

Navigate to Project Overview → Project Settings

Go to Service accounts → Manage service account permissions

Click onCreate service account

Fill in Service account ID field, click on Create and continue

Click on + ADD ROLE

Find and select Firebase Cloud Messaging API Admin role, press CONTINUE

Third step “Grant users access to this service account” is optional. You may press DONE

Create and share service account JSON key
Find your new service account, click on ⋮ on the right side and select Manage keys

Click on ADD KEY → Create new key

Choose JSON and press CREATE

Copy the contents of the JSON file.

Source: https://docs.ngrow.ai/en/articles/8886580-how-to-grant-access-to-firebase-cloud-messaging-v1-api

Composer use local package

Seong Bae — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 01:24:16 +0000

When you are working on Laravel package development, I don't know about other developers but I found it easier to work off of local copy on my computer. This allows making any changes to packages and you can see the changes instantly.

"repositories": [
    {
        "type": "path",
        "url": "/full/or/relative/path/to/development/package"
    }
]

composer require "vendorname/packagename @dev"

Do you develop Laravel packages? What's your best practices?

Updating Ubuntu

Seong Bae — Sat, 28 Jun 2025 06:52:01 +0000

Ensuring that your server is up-to-date with all the security fixes is important.

You can reference this page to learn about Ubuntu's lifecycle and release schedule: https://ubuntu.com/about/release-cycle

sudo apt update        # Fetches the list of available updates
sudo apt upgrade       # Installs some updates; does not remove packages
sudo apt full-upgrade  # Installs updates; may also remove some packages, if needed
sudo apt autoremove    # Removes any old packages that are no longer needed

If reboot required,

sudo reboot

Changing PHP versions on Ubuntu

Seong Bae — Sun, 01 Jun 2025 23:59:37 +0000

When you have multiple versions of PHP installed on your Ubuntu and you want to switch to a specific version, this magic command allows you to change:

sudo update-alternatives --config php

Coffee Review - Trader Joe's French Roast

Seong Bae — Mon, 21 Apr 2025 18:37:15 +0000

As a developer, it is important to have a good source of caffeine to stay refreshed and sometimes late at night. I am not a big fan of energy drinks but I do enjoy having a good cup of coffee in the morning to start the day.

Today, I want to share with you this coffee I came across and it was really good. It is French Roast from Trader Joe's. It is dark roast and very strong and rich in flavor. Recently this has been my favorite coffee.

If you have not tried, it, give it a try!

Install LAMP stack on Ubuntu

Seong Bae — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 07:23:16 +0000

This post is to save in one place all the commands used to build LAMP stack on a Ubuntu server. I am creating this post so that I can reference this whenever I need to set up a new Ubuntu server for web development which happens quite often.

First, update package manager cache:

$ sudo apt update

Install Apache web server:

$ sudo apt install apache2

At this point, if you go to http://localhost, you should be able to see the Apache2 default page.

You can configure firewall for Apache but I'm usually setting up LAMP stack for local development so I'm going to skip configuring firewall.

Install MySQL server:

sudo apt install mysql-server

Then configure MySQL server using the following command:

sudo mysql_secure_installation

Set mysql root password using following commands:

$ sudo mysql
mysql> ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'password';
mysql> exit

Install PHP:

sudo apt install php libapache2-mod-php php-mysql

Confirm php is installed:

$ php -v
PHP 8.3.6 (cli) (built: Dec  2 2024 12:36:18) (NTS)
Copyright (c) The PHP Group
Zend Engine v4.3.6, Copyright (c) Zend Technologies
    with Zend OPcache v8.3.6, Copyright (c), by Zend Technologies

Install PHP Extensions:

sudo apt install php8.3-cli php8.3-{bz2,curl,mbstring,intl,xml,mysql,fpm,bcmath,zip,gd}

Enable php-fpm and apache mod for php:

sudo a2enconf php8.3-fpm
sudo a2enmod proxy_fcgi setenvif
sudo a2enmod php8.3

Restart apache2:

sudo systemctl restart apache2

If creating a new Laravel website, use the following apache config file to get started with creating a virtual site:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin admin@example.com
    ServerName mysite.test
    DocumentRoot /home/baese/projects/mysite/public/

    <Directory /home/baese/projects/mysite/public/>
        DirectoryIndex index.php
         AllowOverride All
         Require all granted
         Order allow,deny
         Allow from all
    </Directory>

    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>