Issue with Storage on shared hosting - php

Question

I am deploying my first project on a shared hosting.
I followed this tutorial to deploy the website and turn the public folder into the public_html folder of my hosting plan.
When I upload an image from my website (with storeAs() method), the file is uploaded in the private/storage folder, not the public one (where I would like).
The asset() function try to display the image from public_html/storage.
What can I do ?
Thank you :)
My files are like this :
private/
- app/
- bootstrap/
- config/
- database/
- resources/
- routes/
- storage/
- tests/
- vendor/
public_html/
- css/
- js/
- images/
- js/
- storage/
(Laravel 8, trying to be hosted on Hostinger)
The tutorial : https://dev.to/pushpak1300/deploying-laravel7-app-on-shared-hosting-hostinger-31cj

Answer 1

Why does this problem happen?
If you implement and need storage matter in your project then you need to link storage folder to the public folder for security reason and to make the URL simple, clean and readable by the users, so when you upload the laravel project to a server, you need to run the following command line to complete the linking process:
php artisan storage:link
and since you host the laravel project to a shared server, so you don’t have access to a terminal to run the above-mentioned command line . so I’ll show you a way to do that manually without using SSH or the terminal.
Steps to fix the problem
1- At localhost server-side (before uploading the project to the server), make sure that you have done filesystem configuration, then run the following command line:
php artisan storage:link
after that you will get a message “The links have been created.” and that is ok for now.
2- Upload the project to the server, the storage link will not work as you expected, so we need to start fixing this.
3- Go to the public folder you will find a folder called “storage”, delete it.
4- Go to routes folder and open “web.php” file, then copy & paste the following code at the top of the file:
Route::get('/linkstorage', function () {
Artisan::call('storage:link') // this will do the command line job
});
Don’t forget to save the changes.
Also, you can do the same process via “api.php” and using requests tools like postman.
5- Now we just need to run this code, so we need to do the GET request by entering the following URL at browser search bar:
“https://www.your-domain.com/public/index.php/linkstorage”
or
“https://www.your-domain.com/public/linkstorage”
this request will run the above code “Artisan::call('storage:link')” which is, in turn, will run the command line
PHP artisan storage: link
now you can go to the public folder and you will see the “storage” folder created again and marked as a shortcut folder and that means the public storage folder now is linked to the storage folder of the project.
6- Now if you upload or create a file to the storage folder, then it will appear in the public/storage folder too, now you can hit the URL of the file at the search bar of the browser and you will get the file successfully :).

Answer 2

Ok guys i found the solution !
Here is how to deploy your Laravel project on one shared hosting using public_html folder : https://dev.to/pushpak1300/deploying-laravel7-app-on-shared-hosting-hostinger-31cj
This will work but you can have a problem (like me) with the storeAs() method if you deal with file uploads.
To solve this problem, I edited the MyProject/config/filesystem.php by adding this in the available disks :
'public_folder' => [
'driver' => 'local',
'root' => 'PATH',
'url' => env('APP_URL').'/storage',
'visibility' => 'public',
]
Replace PATH with the complete path to your public storage (for example /home/you/domains/mydomain.com/public_html/storage/).
Now, open the controller which manage file upload and edit it like this :
request()->image->storeAs('/uploads', 'filename.png', 'public_folder');
This will upload the request()->image in public_html/storage/uploads/filename.png.
I hope it will help you if you had the same problem as me.