How to change root directory for PHP azure website? - php

Question

I have created a PHP website on azure using app services. I use continuous deployment through bitbucket. I need to point the website to public folder in my code to run the app as it is built with zend framework.
After some search, was not able to find how to change the folder where the server points for default directory.

Answer 1

Go to Azure Web apps settings -> Application Settings -> Virtual Applications and directories and setup the physical path of the new folder. Also check the Application checkbox.
Restart the web app once.

Answer 2

There are a few scenarios possible:
You run a Windows App Service
You run a Linux App Service with PHP 7.4 or less
You run a Linux App Service with PHP 8
In the first scenario (Windows App Service) you can go to the App Service > Settings > Configuration blade you need to select the tab "Path Mappings" where you can set the Virtual Applications paths as follows: "/" maps to "site\wwwroot\public".
In the second scenario you can use the .htaccess solution described by #Ed Greenberg, even though for Zend Framework I suggest to use the following settings:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -s [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -l [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
RewriteRule ^.*$ - [NC,L]
RewriteRule ^.*$ /index.php [NC,L]
For the third scenario you have a bit more of a challenge since Apache was replaced by Nginx and the rewrite rules no longer apply. Please see my detailed blog article "PHP 8 on Azure App Service" on how to solve this and other challenges with the new Azure App Service for PHP 8.
Good luck and let me know if it solved your problem.

Answer 3

For PHP 8.0 with nginx I use startup.sh script placed in the root directory of the project. startup.sh contains the following line:
sed -i 's/\/home\/site\/wwwroot/\/home\/site\/wwwroot\/public/g' /etc/nginx/sites-available/default && service nginx reload
You need to add "startup.sh" as Startup Command in General Settings. Now "public" dir is your root directory.

Answer 4

The correct answer in 2021 (for Laravel, and probably other frameworks with a /public directory) is to put an extra .htaccess in the webroot directory.
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ public/$1 [L]
</IfModule>
Credit to Azure Web App - Linux/Laravel : Point domain to folder

Answer 5

Finally I've found Laravel documentation how to make it work with Azure. To be more precise - PHP8 + NGINX. Here is the article link - https://azureossd.github.io/2022/04/22/PHP-Laravel-deploy-on-App-Service-Linux-copy/index.html
Hope it will be useful :-)
PHP 8 (NGINX)
PHP 8 on Azure App Service Linux use NGINX as the Web Server. To have NGINX route requests to /public we’ll have to configure a custom startup script. We can grab the existing default.conf under /etc/nginx/sites-available/default.conf and run cp /etc/nginx/sites-available/default.conf /home. This will copy the default.conf we need into /home so we can download it with an FTP client or any other tool that allows this.
This default.conf has the following line:
root /home/site/wwwroot;
We need to change it to the following:
root /home/site/wwwroot/public;
Next, under the location block we need to change it from:
location / {
index index.php index.html index.htm hostingstart.html;
}
to the following:
location / {
index index.php index.html index.htm hostingstart.html;
try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
}
Now configure your actual startup.sh bash script. Note, the file name is arbitrary as long as it is a Bash (.sh) script. Configure the file along the lines of the below:
#!/bin/bash
echo "Copying custom default.conf over to /etc/nginx/sites-available/default.conf"
NGINX_CONF=/home/default.conf
if [ -f "$NGINX_CONF" ]; then
cp /home/default.conf /etc/nginx/sites-available/default
service nginx reload
else
echo "File does not exist, skipping cp."
fi
NOTE: $query_string can be used as well. See the official documentation here.
Our custom default.conf should look like the below:
server {
#proxy_cache cache;
#proxy_cache_valid 200 1s;
listen 8080;
listen [::]:8080;
root /home/site/wwwroot/public;
index index.php index.html index.htm;
server_name example.com www.example.com;
location / {
index index.php index.html index.htm hostingstart.html;
try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
}
........
.....
...all the other default directives that were in this file originally...
}
Use an FTP client to upload both your startup.sh script and your custom default.sh to the /home directory for your PHP App Service.
Next, under ‘Configuration’ in the portal target /home/startup.sh (or whatever the startup script file name is).
Laravel App
Lastly, restart the App Service. This should now be using our custom startup script. Use LogStream or the Diagnose and Solve -> Application Logs detector, or other methods, to see the stdout from the script.