MerchBay

A custom merchandise and apparel design platform built with Laravel 5.0, enabling users to create, customize, and order personalized products.

🚀 Tech Stack

• Framework: Laravel 5.0
• PHP: 7.0 with native mcrypt support
• Web Server: Apache 2.4
• Database: MySQL
• Container: Docker with Apache
• Reverse Proxy: Traefik (for SSL/TLS and routing)

📋 Prerequisites

• Docker and Docker Compose
• Git
• Access to deployment server (for production/dev deployments)

🛠️ Local Development

Building the Docker Image

docker build -t merchbay:dev .

Running Locally

# Create .env file from example
cp .env.example .env

# Update .env with your local configuration
# Set database credentials, mail settings, etc.

# Run with docker-compose (customize docker-compose.yml for local setup)
docker-compose up -d

Environment Variables

The following environment variables are required:

Database Configuration

• DB_HOST - Database host
• DB_PORT - Database port (default: 3306)
• DB_DATABASE - Database name
• DB_USERNAME - Database username
• DB_PASSWORD - Database password

Application URLs

• APP_URL - Application base URL
• PROD_PRIVATE - Production private server URL
• IMAGES_URL - Images server URL
• UPLOAD_URL - Upload directory URL

Mail Configuration

• MAIL_DRIVER - Mail driver (smtp)
• MAIL_HOST - SMTP host
• MAIL_PORT - SMTP port
• MAIL_USERNAME - SMTP username
• MAIL_PASSWORD - SMTP password
• MAIL_ENCRYPTION - Encryption type (tls/ssl)

Third-Party Services

• CAPTCHA_SITE_KEY - reCAPTCHA site key
• CAPTCHA_SECRET_KEY - reCAPTCHA secret key
• ANALYTICS_SITE_ID - Google Analytics site ID
• ANALYTICS_CLIENT_ID - Google Analytics client ID
• ANALYTICS_SERVICE_EMAIL - Google Analytics service email

🚢 Deployment

Automated CI/CD with Gitea Actions

This project includes automated deployment workflows using Gitea Actions:

Development Deployment

Push to the dev branch to automatically deploy to dev environment:

git push origin dev

• Deploys to: https://dev.merchbay.app

Production Deployment

Push to the main or master branch to automatically deploy to production:

git push origin main

• Deploys to: https://merchbay.app

Docker Registry

Create version tags to build and push to Docker registry:

git tag -a v1.0.0 -m "Release v1.0.0"
git push origin v1.0.0

Workflow Files

• .gitea/workflows/deploy-dev.yml - Development deployment
• .gitea/workflows/deploy.yml - Production deployment
• .gitea/workflows/build-push.yml - Docker image build and push

📁 Project Structure

merchbay/
├── app/                    # Application core
│   ├── Http/              # Controllers, middleware, routes
│   ├── Models/            # Database models
│   └── Services/          # Business logic services
├── config/                # Configuration files
├── database/              # Migrations and seeds
├── public/                # Public assets (images, CSS, JS)
├── resources/             # Views and frontend assets
├── storage/               # Application storage
├── docker-compose.yml     # Docker compose configuration
├── Dockerfile             # Docker image definition
└── docker-entrypoint.sh   # Container startup script

🔧 Development Notes

Storage Permissions

The Docker entrypoint automatically creates and sets proper permissions for:

• storage/framework/views
• storage/framework/cache
• storage/framework/sessions
• storage/logs
• bootstrap/cache

PHP Extensions

The following PHP extensions are installed:

• pdo_mysql
• mbstring
• exif
• pcntl
• bcmath
• mcrypt (native in PHP 7.0)
• tokenizer
• zip
• gd (with freetype and jpeg support)

🐛 Troubleshooting

500 Internal Server Error

1. Check container logs: docker logs merchbay_app
2. Verify storage permissions are set correctly
3. Ensure all environment variables are configured in .env
4. Check database connectivity

Storage Permission Issues

The entrypoint script automatically fixes permissions on container start. If issues persist:

docker exec merchbay_app chown -R www-data:www-data storage bootstrap/cache
docker exec merchbay_app chmod -R 775 storage bootstrap/cache

📄 License

Proprietary - All rights reserved

🤝 Support

For support and questions, contact the development team.