Bash script that creates a new project and virtual host for that project. Can also be used to quickly create a new Laravel project.

create-project.sh

#!/bin/bash

# This script creates a new project (or site) under /var/sites and creates
# new virtual host for that site. With the options a site can also
# install the latest version of Laravel directly.
# This script was originally based on the following script by @Nek from
# Coderwall: https://coderwall.com/p/cqoplg

# Display the usage information of the command.
create-project-usage() {
cat <<"USAGE"
Usage: create-project [OPTIONS] <name>

	-h, --help        Show this help screen
	-u, --url         Specify a local address, default is http://name.dev
	-r, --remove      Remove a Virtual Host
	-e, --email       Email of the administrator in the virtual host file
	--list            List the current virtual host
	-l, --laravel     Create a new Laravel project

Examples:

	create-project foo
	create-project --laravel foo
	create-project --remove foo
USAGE
exit 0
}

# Remove a project and its Virtual Host.
project-remove() {
	sudo -v
	echo "Removing $url from /etc/hosts."
	sudo sed -i '/'$url'/d' /etc/hosts

	echo "Disabling and deleting the $name virtual host."
	sudo a2dissite $name
	sudo rm /etc/apache2/sites-available/$name
	sudo service apache2 reload

	echo "Project has been removed. The document root still exists."
	exit 0
}

# List the available and enabled virtual hosts.
project-list() {
	echo "Available virtual hosts:"
	ls -l /etc/apache2/sites-available/
	echo "Enabled virtual hosts:"
	ls -l /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/
	exit 0
}

# Define and create default values.
name="${!#}"
email="webmaster@localhost"
url="$name.dev"
docroot="/var/sites/$name"
laravel=0

# Loop to read options and arguments.
while [ $1 ]; do
	case "$1" in
		'--list')
			project-list;;
		'--help'|'-h')
			create-project-usage;;
		'--remove'|'-r')
			url="$2"
			project-remove;;
		'--url'|'-u')
			url="$2";;
		'--email'|'-e')
			email="$2";;
		'--laravel'|'-l')
			laravel=1
	esac
	shift
done

# If we are not creating a Laravel project then the document root will be
# htdocs, otherwise it will be public.
if [ "$laravel" = 0 ]; then
	docroot="$docroot/htdocs"
fi

# Check if the docroot exists, if it does not exist then we'll create it.
if [ ! -d "$docroot" ]; then
	echo "Creating $docroot directory..."
	mkdir -p $docroot
fi

# If creating a Laravel project then we'll use composer to create the
# new project in the document root.
if [ "$laravel" = 1 ]; then
	echo -e "Installing latest version of Laravel...\n"
	composer create-project --keep-vcs laravel/laravel $docroot
	docroot="$docroot/public"
fi

echo -e "\nCreating the new $name Virtual Host with DocumentRoot: $docroot"

sudo cp /etc/apache2/sites-available/template /etc/apache2/sites-available/$name
sudo sed -i 's/template.email/'$email'/g' /etc/apache2/sites-available/$name
sudo sed -i 's/template.url/'$url'/g' /etc/apache2/sites-available/$name
sudo sed -i 's#template.docroot#'$docroot'#g' /etc/apache2/sites-available/$name

echo "Adding $url to the /etc/hosts file..."

sudo sed -i '1s/^/127.0.0.1       '$url'\n/' /etc/hosts
sudo a2ensite $name
sudo service apache2 reload

echo -e "\nYou can now browse to your Virtual Host at http://$url"

exit 0

template

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin template.email

    ServerName template.url
    DocumentRoot template.docroot
    <Directory />
        Options FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride All
    </Directory>

    <Directory template.docroot/>
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
        AllowOverride All
        Order allow,deny
        allow from All
    </Directory>

    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
    LogLevel debug
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

This is a shell script that creates a new Virtual Host for a given name without having to go through the entire process.

Installation

Download the script to /usr/local/bin and the template to /etc/apache2/sites-available.

$ cd /usr/local/bin && sudo wget https://gist.github.com/jasonlewis/6291983/raw/f0660e96f151d9b7d8123741ab970405d727227c/create-project.sh
$ cd /etc/apache2/sites-available && sudo wget https://gist.github.com/jasonlewis/6291983/raw/76d40e9e901704bd6fa0970cd63dbd6964238f39/template

You can then rename and chmod the create-project.sh file.

sudo mv /usr/local/bin/create-project.sh /usr/local/bin/create-project && sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/create-project

Usage

To see usage instructions simply run create-project --help.

I've followed your instructions for installation, but I'm getting "zsh: command not found: create-project" when I try running "create-project --help". Any idea's why this might be?

@JasonMortonNZ Sorry for the delayed reply. You probably need to chmod the file. Will update the instructions.

sudo chmod +x create-project

Hi it's been 2 days that am struggling with the script create-project.sh. i just discover that my apache config wants that
the file in /etc/apache2/sites-available needs to ends with .conf otherwise i can't enable the site.
Now when i lauch the script every thing is allright except that 403 ERROR . :-( . What's really drive me nuts is i have the same configuration.

Hi just some precisions about the 403 error.
Be sure to work on a true install of linux. In my case i have an Ubuntu Gnome with wubi. My HD is in NTFS format
and both NTFS and Fat32 doesn't handle all those user/groups permissions.
check: http://askubuntu.com/questions/163685/403-forbidden-error-in-apache-with-document-root-on-an-ntfs-partition

hi, only one note: in the shell script you should add $name.conf beacuse the file .conf on sites-availables dont exist!

And .dev domain not work for apache https://stackoverflow.com/questions/47754347/google-chrome-dev-not-work-over-http