Using Homestead with CakePHP Framework

Interested in checking out CakePHP? You can easily spin up a new CakePHP project and add Homestead just as easy as any other modern PHP project.

When I teach Laravel I use a quick start style application. I'll be starting to build this same application with CakePHP:

composer create-project --prefer-dist cakephp/app cakephp-quickstart
cd cakephp-quickstart
composer require --dev laravel/homestead
./vendor/bin/homestead make

CakePHP does not use the traditional public folder that other frameworks use as the HTTP entry point into their application. If we look at our newly generated Homestead.yaml file:

ip: 192.168.10.10
memory: 2048
cpus: 1
provider: virtualbox
authorize: ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
keys:
- ~/.ssh/id_rsa
folders:
-
map: /Users/halo/PhpstormProjects/cakephp-quickstart
to: /home/vagrant/cakephp-quickstart
sites:
-
map: cakephp-quickstart.app
to: /home/vagrant/cakephp-quickstart/webroot
databases:
- homestead
name: cakephp-quickstart
hostname: cakephp-quickstart

As you can see on our sites mapping we need to map the site to the webroot path since this is the HTTP entry point for CakePHP.

Now we're ready to run vagrant up like we normally would:

vagrant up
Bringing machine 'cakephp-quickstart' up with 'virtualbox' provider...
==> cakephp-quickstart: Importing base box 'laravel/homestead'...
==> cakephp-quickstart: Matching MAC address for NAT networking...
==> cakephp-quickstart: Checking if box 'laravel/homestead' is up to date...
==> cakephp-quickstart: Setting the name of the VM: cakephp-quickstart
==> cakephp-quickstart: Clearing any previously set network interfaces...
==> cakephp-quickstart: Preparing network interfaces based on configuration...
    cakephp-quickstart: Adapter 1: nat
    cakephp-quickstart: Adapter 2: hostonly
==> cakephp-quickstart: Forwarding ports...
    cakephp-quickstart: 80 (guest) => 8000 (host) (adapter 1)
    cakephp-quickstart: 443 (guest) => 44300 (host) (adapter 1)
    cakephp-quickstart: 3306 (guest) => 33060 (host) (adapter 1)
    cakephp-quickstart: 5432 (guest) => 54320 (host) (adapter 1)
    cakephp-quickstart: 8025 (guest) => 8025 (host) (adapter 1)
    cakephp-quickstart: 27017 (guest) => 27017 (host) (adapter 1)
    cakephp-quickstart: 22 (guest) => 2222 (host) (adapter 1)
...
==> cakephp-quickstart: Running provisioner: shell...
    cakephp-quickstart: Running: inline script
==> cakephp-quickstart: Running provisioner: shell...
    cakephp-quickstart: Running: /var/folders/dv/jhkxknyj3nscz4hlghs_45280000gn/T/vagrant-shell20170630-4404-u9meue.sh
==> cakephp-quickstart: Running provisioner: shell...
    cakephp-quickstart: Running: script: Creating Certificate: cakephp-quickstart.app
==> cakephp-quickstart: Running provisioner: shell...
    cakephp-quickstart: Running: script: Creating Site: cakephp-quickstart.app
==> cakephp-quickstart: Running provisioner: shell...
    cakephp-quickstart: Running: script: Checking for old Schedule
==> cakephp-quickstart: Running provisioner: shell...
    cakephp-quickstart: Running: script: Restarting Nginx
==> cakephp-quickstart: Running provisioner: shell...
    cakephp-quickstart: Running: script: Creating MySQL Database: homestead
==> cakephp-quickstart: Running provisioner: shell...
    cakephp-quickstart: Running: script: Creating Postgres Database: homestead
==> cakephp-quickstart: Running provisioner: shell...
    cakephp-quickstart: Running: script: Clear Variables
==> cakephp-quickstart: Running provisioner: shell...
    cakephp-quickstart: Running: script: Update Composer
==> cakephp-quickstart: Updating to version 1.4.2 (stable channel).
==> cakephp-quickstart:
==> cakephp-quickstart: Downloading (connecting...)
==> cakephp-quickstart:
==> cakephp-quickstart: Downloading (100%)
==> cakephp-quickstart:
==> cakephp-quickstart:
==> cakephp-quickstart: Use composer self-update --rollback to return to version 1.4.1
==> cakephp-quickstart: Running provisioner: shell...
    cakephp-quickstart: Running: /var/folders/dv/jhkxknyj3nscz4hlghs_45280000gn/T/vagrant-shell20170630-4404-3ae3f1.sh

Now we can view the site in our browser at http://localhost:8000 and we should see the following:

If you look closely you will see a Database error "CakePHP is NOT able to connect to the database. Connection to database could not be established: SQLSTATE[HY000] [1045] Access denied for user 'my_app'@'localhost' (using password: YES)"

CakePHP stores the database information in the file config/app.php in the Datasources.default array:

'username' => 'my_app',
'password' => 'secret',
'database' => 'my_app',
'encoding' => 'utf8',
'timezone' => 'UTC',
'flags' => [],
'cacheMetadata' => true,
'log' => false,

Changing the username and database fields to homestead (which is default for the Homestead environment) will resolve the database connection error.

Don't like the webroot folder and want to use public instead? CakePHP makes this easy. Simply rename the folder in your project, go back to the file config/app.php and look for the App.webroot array key and change webroot to public, and then update your Homestead.yaml file to point the site back to public and run vagrant destroy && vagrant up. Now your project is being served from the public folder.

I hope you found this useful, thanks for reading.