Practical PHP, Laravel, devops, and AI-assisted workflow notes from Md Zia Uddin.
13.31 adds Queue::totalSize() so I stop adding pending + delayed + reserved by hand, and a JobInterrupted event that only fires when an Interruptible job is actually in handle(). SQS still returns 0. An idle SIGTERM is still WorkerInterrupted. I would run composer show laravel/framework before I claim either.
Sep 23, 2026 · 9 min read
I wanted a self-hosted BaaS with Postgres instead of another Firebase bill. Appwrite 2.0’s installer came up on :20080. localhost was the VPS, not my laptop, and a 2 GB droplet OOM’d before Console IV loaded. Wizard hostname matching Traefik Host, 4 GB RAM plus swap, then close 20080 — that is the lab path.
Sep 14, 2026 · 12 min read
PHP 8.6.0beta3 tagged 10 Sep 2026. GA is still scheduled 19 Nov. I would not put beta FPM on a VPS. I would run the official CLI container, try clamp() and ? placeholders, and leave Laravel 13 on 8.5.
Sep 11, 2026 · 8 min read
On 13.29, Storage::get('../../../.env') already threw. Storage::path() of the same string still concatenated past the disk root. 13.30 runs path() through Flysystem's WhitespacePathNormalizer. I would bump composer show laravel/framework before I trust a query-string download again.
Sep 9, 2026 · 9 min read
I wanted merge, OCR, and compress off a hosted PDF site. Stirling came up on Docker. The compose I copied set SECURITY_ENABLELOGIN=false on a public 8080, and ultra-lite would have dropped login anyway. Login on, bind localhost, Nginx in front — that is what is running in the lab now.
Sep 7, 2026 · 9 min read
PHP 8.5.0 shipped 20 Nov 2025; 8.5.10 is the latest I can cite (27 Aug 2026). I would not start with the pipe operator. I would make php-fpm match php -v, stop calling array_first() like a Laravel helper, and only then touch clone-with and Uri\Rfc3986\Uri.
Sep 4, 2026 · 8 min read
I wanted a photo instance I actually own. Pixelfed is Laravel 12, and the homepage never tells you that Composer will OOM a 1GB VPS or that feeds stay empty until Horizon is a systemd service. Redis, Intervention Image, and Flysystem are the packages that decide whether the box is useful.
Sep 1, 2026 · 12 min read
I wanted runbooks off Notion. Wiki.js came up on Docker, then login died because DB_PASS did not match POSTGRES_PASSWORD, and search stayed empty until pg_trgm was actually in play. After that, HTTPS and a dump script were the boring parts.
Aug 31, 2026 · 7 min read
I wanted host metrics on a private VPS without a SaaS bill. Grafana came up on HTTPS; Save & test on the Prometheus data source failed until I used http://prometheus:9090 on the Compose network, not localhost. After that, node_exporter targets showed UP.
Aug 28, 2026 · 4 min read
I wanted a Docker UI without handing the socket to a SaaS console. Portainer CE started; I delayed the first admin page and the setup window closed. After a container restart I created the admin, put Caddy in front of 9443, and the local environment listed containers.
Aug 26, 2026 · 7 min read
I wanted CI next to Gitea without GitLab’s RAM. Woodpecker OAuth worked; pushes never started a pipeline until Gitea allowed loopback webhooks. After ALLOWED_HOST_LIST and a matching /authorize callback, the hello step went green.
Aug 24, 2026 · 8 min read
I wanted Git, merge requests, and CI on one box I control. GitLab CE returned 502 for minutes while Omnibus configured; I almost killed the container. After I waited, grabbed initial_root_password, and mapped SSH to 2222, the UI came up.
Aug 21, 2026 · 4 min read