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Dashboard tour Projects Services Multi-PHP Terminal SSH manager Cron scheduler One-click deploys Cloud sync

Usage

This page walks through the LaraEnv dashboard panel by panel. Every operation is also available from the CLI — see the Reference for commands.

Dashboard tour

The dashboard has three areas: Services (top), Projects (middle) and Tools (bottom). The system tray icon mirrors the same status — green if all required services are up, amber if something is starting, red if something failed.

Projects

  • Create — pick a folder name, PHP version, optional Laravel/WordPress/blank scaffold. LaraEnv writes the vhost, hosts entry and TLS cert in one step.
  • Stop / Start — toggles the vhost without disabling the project. Useful when two projects share port 80 binds or when debugging.
  • Open in editor — VS Code, PhpStorm, Sublime, Cursor and Zed are auto-detected.
  • Open in terminal — launches the built-in terminal pre-set to the project folder with the right PHP version on $PATH.
  • HTTPS — every .test domain gets an automatically trusted local cert via the bundled root CA.

Services

Each service card shows status, version, port and memory use. Click the gear icon to edit the config (nginx.conf, my.ini, php.ini, redis.conf) in the built-in editor. Saving reloads the service automatically.

Supported services: Nginx, Apache, MySQL 5.7/8.0/8.4, MariaDB, PostgreSQL 13–16, Redis, Mailpit, Meilisearch, Node.js (LTS toggle).

Multi-PHP

Install any combination of PHP 7.4, 8.0, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3 and 8.4 from Services → PHP → Add version. Each version has its own php.ini, extension folder and FPM pool. Switching a project's version takes effect immediately — no restart of other projects.

Terminal

The built-in terminal is a real PowerShell / Git Bash hybrid with Windows Terminal-grade rendering. Tabs, splits, transparency, theme sync with the dashboard. Each tab inherits the project's PHP version on $PATH so php -v always matches what the browser is hitting.

SSH manager

  • Add hosts with friendly names, group them in folders, paste keys or generate new ED25519 pairs in-place.
  • Connect with one click — opens in the built-in terminal.
  • Optional Pro sync: hosts and keys are encrypted end-to-end with AES-256-GCM (key derived via Argon2id from your passphrase) before leaving the machine.

Cron scheduler

A real Windows-native cron with crontab-style expressions, one-shot tasks and "every N minutes" presets. Each job has its own log file, retry policy and per-PHP-version selector — perfect for php artisan schedule:run on a per-project PHP version.

One-click deploys (Pro)

  1. Add a server (paste a fresh Ubuntu 22.04 / 24.04 IP + root key).
  2. LaraEnv provisions Nginx, PHP-FPM, MySQL/PostgreSQL, Redis, Supervisor and Let's Encrypt.
  3. Connect a Git repo (GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket).
  4. Every push to the chosen branch triggers a zero-downtime deploy: pull, install deps, run migrations, swap symlink.

Cloud sync (Pro)

SSH hosts, SSH keys, crons, themes and editor preferences sync across your machines. Every payload is encrypted on-device before upload — our server only ever stores ciphertext, and we cannot decrypt your data even if compelled. See the privacy policy for the full picture.