Budget-Friendly Self-Hosting: Raspberry Pi on Your Home Network with Cloudflare Tunnel

Introduction:
In this tutorial, we’ll guide you through the process of setting up Apache, PHP, phpMyAdmin, and Laravel on your Raspberry Pi. Additionally, we’ll show you how to connect your Raspberry Pi to Cloudflare Tunnel for secure access from anywhere.

Prerequisites:

A Raspberry Pi with Raspbian OS installed.
Basic knowledge of Linux commands.
A Cloudflare account.

Step 1: Update and Install Apache

sudo apt update
sudo apt-get install apache2 -y

Step 2: Access Apache’s Default Page

Open a web browser and enter your Raspberry Pi’s hostname or IP address, e.g., http://raspberrypi.local. You should see the default Apache page if the installation was successful.

Step 3: Remove Default HTML Page

cd /var/www/html/
sudo rm index.html
cd /

Step 4: Install PHP 8.2

sudo wget -qO /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/php.gpg https://packages.sury.org/php/apt.gpg
echo "deb https://packages.sury.org/php/ $(lsb_release -sc) main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/php.list
sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y php8.2-common php8.2-cli
php --version

Step 5: Install PHP Modules and MariaDB

sudo apt install -y php8.2-mysql
sudo apt install -y libapache2-mod-php8.2
sudo apt install mariadb-server php-mysql -y

Step 6: Secure MySQL Installation

sudo mysql_secure_installation

Step 7: Create MySQL User and Database

sudo mysql --user=root --password
> CREATE USER admin@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'root';
> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO admin@localhost;
> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
> EXIT;

Step 8: Install phpMyAdmin

sudo apt update
sudo apt install phpmyadmin -y
sudo ln -s /usr/share/phpmyadmin /var/www/html/phpmyadmin

Step 9: Upgrade phpMyAdmin

sudo mv /usr/share/phpmyadmin/ /usr/share/phpmyadmin.bak
sudo mkdir /usr/share/phpmyadmin/
cd /usr/share/phpmyadmin/
sudo wget https://www.phpmyadmin.net/downloads/phpMyAdmin-latest-all-languages.tar.gz
sudo tar xzf phpMyAdmin-*-all-languages.tar.gz
sudo mv phpMyAdmin-*-all-languages/* /usr/share/phpmyadmin
sudo cp /usr/share/phpmyadmin/config.sample.inc.php /usr/share/phpmyadmin/config.inc.php
sudo nano config.inc.php

Inside config.inc.php, set the blowfish secret:

$cfg['blowfish_secret'] = 'Zbwen/BEAFv:HTbqOROrqakJ;KUMIpV:';

Step 10: Configure File Permissions

ls -lh /var/www/
sudo chown -R pi:www-data /var/www/html/
sudo chmod -R 770 /var/www/html/
ls -lh /var/www/

Step 11: Upload Your Laravel Project

Use FileZilla or any FTP client to upload your Laravel project to /var/www/html/.

Step 12: Configure Apache for Laravel

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/your-project-folder/storage
sudo chmod -R 775 /var/www/html/your-project-folder/storage
sudo a2enmod rewrite
sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf

Edit the configuration as follows:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    DocumentRoot /var/www/html/your-project-folder
    <Directory /var/www/html/your-project-folder>
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Listen 81

<VirtualHost *:81>
    DocumentRoot /var/www/html/phpmyadmin
    <Directory /var/www/html/phpmyadmin>
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Step 13: Restart Apache

sudo service apache2 restart

Step 14: Final File Permissions

sudo chown -R pi:www-data /var/www/html/
sudo chmod -R 770 /var/www/html/

Step 15: Create a Database

Access phpMyAdmin at http://raspberrypi.local:81/ and create your database.

Step 16: Configure Laravel Environment

Update the .env file of your Laravel project with the database credentials.

Step 17: Follow Laravel Instructions

Refer to Laravel’s documentation and follow their instructions to complete your project setup.

Step 18: Connect to Cloudflare Tunnel

Follow Cloudflare’s documentation to set up and connect your Raspberry Pi to Cloudflare Tunnel for secure remote access.

Conclusion:
You’ve successfully set up Apache, PHP, phpMyAdmin, and Laravel on your Raspberry Pi. Additionally, you’ve established a secure connection to your Pi using Cloudflare Tunnel, allowing you to access your web applications from anywhere with enhanced security.