Tenancy

A Laravel multi-database tenancy package that respects your code.

You won't have to change a thing in your application's code.*

• ✔️ No model traits to change database connection
• ✔️ No replacing of Laravel classes (Cache, Storage, ...) with tenancy-aware classes
• ✔️ Built-in tenant identification based on hostname (including second level domains)

* depending on how you use the filesystem. Be sure to read that section. Everything else will work out of the box.

Installation

If you're installing this package for the first time, there's also a tutorial.

Requirements

• Laravel 5.7 or 5.8

Installing the package

composer require stancl/tenancy

This package follows semantic versioning 2.0.0. Each major release will have its own branch, so that bug fixes can be provided for older versions as well.

Configuring the InitializeTenancy middleware

The TenancyServiceProvider automatically adds the tenancy middleware group which can be assigned to routes. You only need to make sure the middleware is top priority.

Open app/Http/Kernel.php and make the middleware top priority, so that it gets executed before anything else, making sure things like the database switch connections soon enough.

protected $middlewarePriority = [
    \Stancl\Tenancy\Middleware\InitializeTenancy::class,
    // ...
];

When a tenant route is visited, but the tenant can't be identified, an exception is thrown. If you want to change this behavior, to a redirect for example, add this to your app/Providers/AppServiceProvider.php's boot() method.

// use Stancl\Tenancy\Middleware\InitializeTenancy;

$this->app->bind(InitializeTenancy::class, function ($app) {
    return new InitializeTenancy(function ($exception) {
        // redirect
    });
});

Creating tenant routes

Stancl\Tenancy\TenantRouteServiceProvider maps tenant routes only if the current domain is not exempt from tenancy. Tenant routes are loaded from routes/tenant.php.

Rename the routes/web.php file to routes/tenant.php. This file will contain routes accessible only with tenancy.

Create an empty routes/web.php file. This file will contain routes accessible without tenancy (such as the routes specific to the part of your app which creates tenants - landing page, sign up page, etc).

Publishing the configuration file

php artisan vendor:publish --provider='Stancl\Tenancy\TenancyServiceProvider' --tag=config

You should see something along the lines of Copied File [...] to [/config/tenancy.php].

exempt_domains

Domains listed in this array won't have tenant routes.

For example, you can put the domain on which you have your landing page here.

database

Databases will be named like this:

config('tenancy.database.prefix') . $uuid . config('tenancy.database.suffix')

They will use a connection based on the connection specified using the based_on setting. Using mysql or sqlite is fine, but if you need to change more things than just the database name, you can create a new tenant connection and set tenancy.database.based_on to tenant.

redis

Keys will be prefixed with:

config('tenancy.redis.prefix_base') . $uuid

These changes will only apply for connections listed in prefixed_connections.

You can enable Redis tenancy by changing the tenancy.redis.tenancy config to true.

Note: If you want Redis to be multi-tenant, you must use phpredis. Predis does not support prefixes.

If you're using Laravel 5.7, predis is not supported even if Redis tenancy is disabled.

cache

Cache keys will be tagged with a tag:

config('tenancy.cache.tag_base') . $uuid

filesystem

Filesystem paths will be suffixed with:

config('tenancy.filesystem.suffix_base') . $uuid

These changes will only apply for disks listed in disks.

You can see an example in the Filesystem section of the documentation The filesystem.root_override section is explained there as well.

Usage

Creating a Redis connection for storing tenancy-related data

Add an array like this to database.redis config:

'tenancy' => [
    'host' => env('TENANCY_REDIS_HOST', '127.0.0.1'),
    'password' => env('TENANCY_REDIS_PASSWORD', null),
    'port' => env('TENANCY_REDIS_PORT', 6380),
    'database' => env('TENANCY_REDIS_DB', 3),
],

Note the different database number and the different port.

A different port is used in this example, because if you use Redis for caching, you may want to run one instance with no persistence and another instance with persistence for tenancy-related data. If you want to run only one Redis instance, just make sure you use a different database number to avoid collisions.

Read the Storage driver section for more information.

Obtaining a TenantManager instance

You can use the tenancy() and tenant() helpers to resolve Stancl\Tenancy\TenantManager out of the service container. These two helpers are exactly the same, the only reason there are two is nice syntax. tenancy()->init() sounds better than tenant()->init() and tenant()->create() sounds better than tenancy()->create(). You may also use the Tenancy facade.

Creating a new tenant

>>> tenant()->create('dev.localhost')
=> [
     "uuid" => "49670df0-1a87-11e9-b7ba-cf5353777957",
     "domain" => "dev.localhost",
   ]

When you create a new tenant, you can migrate their database like this:

\Artisan::call('tenants:migrate', [
    '--tenants' => [$tenant['uuid']]
]);

You can also seed the database in the same way. The only difference is the command name (tenants:seed).

Starting a session as a tenant

This runs TenantManager::bootstrap() which switches the DB connection, prefixes Redis, changes filesystem root paths, etc.

tenancy()->init();
// The domain will be autodetected unless specified as an argument
tenancy()->init('dev.localhost');

Getting tenant information based on his UUID

You can use find(), which is an alias for getTenantById(). You may use the second argument to specify the key(s) as a string/array.

>>> tenant()->getTenantById('dbe0b330-1a6e-11e9-b4c3-354da4b4f339');
=> [
     "uuid" => "dbe0b330-1a6e-11e9-b4c3-354da4b4f339",
     "domain" => "localhost",
     "foo" => "bar",
   ]
>>> tenant()->getTenantById('dbe0b330-1a6e-11e9-b4c3-354da4b4f339', 'foo');
=> [
     "foo" => "bar",
   ]
>>> tenant()->getTenantById('dbe0b330-1a6e-11e9-b4c3-354da4b4f339', ['foo', 'domain']);
=> [
     "foo" => "bar",
     "domain" => "localhost",
   ]

Getting tenant UUID based on his domain

>>> tenant()->getTenantIdByDomain('localhost');
=> "b3ce3f90-1a88-11e9-a6b0-038c6337ae50"
>>> tenant()->getIdByDomain('localhost');
=> "b3ce3f90-1a88-11e9-a6b0-038c6337ae50"

Getting tenant information based on his domain

You may use the second argument to specify the key(s) as a string/array.

>>> tenant()->findByDomain('localhost');
=> [
     "uuid" => "b3ce3f90-1a88-11e9-a6b0-038c6337ae50",
     "domain" => "localhost",
   ]

Getting current tenant information

You can access the public array tenant of TenantManager like this:

tenancy()->tenant

which returns an array. If you want to get the value of a specific key from the array, you can use one of the helpers with an argument --- the key on the tenant array.

tenant('uuid'); // Does the same thing as tenant()->tenant['uuid']

Listing all tenants

>>> tenant()->all();
=> Illuminate\Support\Collection {#2980
     all: [
       [
         "uuid" => "32e20780-1a88-11e9-a051-4b6489a7edac",
         "domain" => "localhost",
       ],
       [
         "uuid" => "49670df0-1a87-11e9-b7ba-cf5353777957",
         "domain" => "dev.localhost",
       ],
     ],
   }
>>> tenant()->all()->pluck('domain');
=> Illuminate\Support\Collection {#2983
     all: [
       "localhost",
       "dev.localhost",
     ],
   }

Deleting a tenant

>>> tenant()->delete('dbe0b330-1a6e-11e9-b4c3-354da4b4f339');
=> true
>>> tenant()->delete(tenant()->getTenantIdByDomain('dev.localhost'));
=> true
>>> tenant()->delete(tenant()->findByDomain('localhost')['uuid']);
=> true

Note that deleting a tenant doesn't delete his database. You can do this manually, though. To get the database name of a tenant, you can do use the TenantManager::getDatabaseName() method.

>>> tenant()->getDatabaseName(tenant()->findByDomain('laravel.localhost'))
=> "tenant67412a60-1c01-11e9-a9e9-f799baa56fd9"

Storage driver

Currently, only Redis is supported, but you're free to code your own storage driver which follows the Stancl\Tenancy\Interfaces\StorageDriver interface. Just point the tenancy.storage_driver setting at your driver.

Note that you need to configure persistence on your Redis instance if you don't want to lose all information about tenants.

Read the Redis documentation page on persistence. You should definitely use AOF and if you want to be even more protected from data loss, you can use RDB in conjunction with AOF.

If your cache driver is Redis and you don't want to use AOF with it, run two Redis instances. Otherwise, just make sure you use a different database (number) for tenancy and for anything else.

Storing custom data

Along with the tenant and database info, you can store your own data in the storage. This is useful, for example, when you want to store tenant-specific config. You can use:

get (string|array $key, string $uuid = null) // $uuid defaults to the current tenant's UUID
put (string|array $key, mixed $value = null, string $uuid = null) // if $key is array, make sure $value is null

tenancy()->get($key);
tenancy()->get($key, $uuid);
tenancy()->get(['key1', 'key2']);
tenancy()->put($key, $value);
tenancy()->set($key, $value); // alias for put()
tenancy()->put($key, $value, $uuid);
tenancy()->put(['key1' => 'value1', 'key2' => 'value2']);
tenancy()->put(['key1' => 'value1', 'key2' => 'value2'], null, $uuid);

Note that $key has to be a string or an array with string keys. The value(s) can be of any data type. Example with arrays:

>>> tenant()->put('foo', ['a' => 'b', 'c' => 'd']);
=> [ // put() returns the supplied value(s)
     "a" => "b",
     "c" => "d",
   ]
>>> tenant()->get('foo');
=> [
     "a" => "b",
     "c" => "d",
   ]

Database

The entire application will use a new database connection. The connection will be based on the connection specified in tenancy.database.based_on. A database name of tenancy.database.prefix + tenant UUID + tenancy.database.suffix will be used. You can set the suffix to .sqlite if you're using sqlite and want the files to be in the sqlite format and you can leave the suffix empty if you're using MySQL (for example).

Redis

Connections listed in the tenancy.redis.prefixed_connections config array use a prefix based on the tenancy.redis.prefix_base and the tenant UUID.

Note: You must use phpredis if you want mutli-tenant Redis. Predis doesn't support prefixes.

Cache

Both cache() and Cache will use Stancl\Tenancy\CacheManager, which adds a tag (prefix_base + tenant UUID) to all methods called on it.

Filesystem/Storage

Assuming the following tenancy config:

'filesystem' => [
    'suffix_base' => 'tenant',
    // Disks which should be suffixed with the suffix_base + tenant UUID.
    'disks' => [
        'local',
        // 'public',
        // 's3',
    ],
    'root_override' => [
        // Disks whose roots should be overriden after storage_path() is suffixed.
        'local' => '%storage_path%/app/',
        'public' => '%storage_path%/app/public/',
    ],
],

1. The storage_path() will be suffixed with a directory named tenant + the tenant UUID.

2. The local disk's root will be storage_path('app') (which is equivalen to storage_path() . '/app/'). By default, all disks' roots are suffixed with tenant + the tenant UUID. This works for s3 and similar disks. But for local disks, this results in unwanted behavior. The default root for this disk is storage_path('app'):

   'local' => [
       'driver' => 'local',
       'root' => storage_path('app'),
   ],

   However, this configration file was loaded before tenancy was initialized. This means that if we simply suffix this disk's root, we get /path_to_your_application/storage/app/tenant1e22e620-1cb8-11e9-93b6-8d1b78ac0bcd/. That's not what we want. We want /path_to_your_application/storage/tenant1e22e620-1cb8-11e9-93b6-8d1b78ac0bcd/app/.

   This is what the override section of the config is for. %storage_path% gets replaced by storage_path() after tenancy is initialized. The roots of disks listed in the root_override section of the config will be replaced according it. All other disks will be simply suffixed with tenant + the tenant UUID.

>>> Storage::disk('local')->getAdapter()->getPathPrefix()
=> "/var/www/laravel/multitenancy/storage/app/"
>>> tenancy()->init()
=> [
     "uuid" => "dbe0b330-1a6e-11e9-b4c3-354da4b4f339",
     "domain" => "localhost",
   ]
>>> Storage::disk('local')->getAdapter()->getPathPrefix()
=> "/var/www/laravel/multitenancy/storage/tenantdbe0b330-1a6e-11e9-b4c3-354da4b4f339/app/"

storage_path() will also be suffixed in the same way. Note that this means that each tenant will have their own storage directory.

If you write to these directories, you will need to create them after you create the tenant. See the docs for PHP's mkdir.

Logs will be saved to storage/logs regardless of any changes to storage_path().

One thing that you will have to change if you use storage similarly to the example on the image is your use of the helper function asset() (that is, if you use it).

You need to make this change to your code:

-  asset("storage/images/products/$product_id.png");
+  tenant_asset("images/products/$product_id.png");

Note that all (public) tenant assets have to be in the app/public/ subdirectory of the tenant's storage directory, as shown in the image above.

This is what the backend of tenant_asset() returns:

// TenantAssetsController
return response()->file(storage_path('app/public/' . $path));

With default filesystem configuration, these two commands are equivalent:

Storage::disk('public')->put($filename, $data);
Storage::disk('local')->put("public/$filename", $data);

Artisan commands

Available commands for the "tenants" namespace:
  tenants:list      List tenants.
  tenants:migrate   Run migrations for tenant(s)
  tenants:rollback  Rollback migrations for tenant(s).
  tenants:seed      Seed tenant database(s).

tenants:list

$ artisan tenants:list
Listing all tenants.
[Tenant] uuid: dbe0b330-1a6e-11e9-b4c3-354da4b4f339 @ localhost
[Tenant] uuid: 49670df0-1a87-11e9-b7ba-cf5353777957 @ dev.localhost

tenants:migrate, tenants:rollback, tenants:seed

• You may specify the tenant UUID(s) using the --tenants option.

$ artisan tenants:seed --tenants=8075a580-1cb8-11e9-8822-49c5d8f8ff23                                                                                                                    
Tenant: 8075a580-1cb8-11e9-8822-49c5d8f8ff23 (laravel.localhost)
Database seeding completed successfully.

Tenant migrations

Tenant migrations are located in database/migrations/tenant, so you should move your tenant migrations there.

Some tips

• If you create a tenant using the interactive console (artisan tinker) and use sqlite, you might need to change the database's permissions and/or ownership (chmod/chown) so that the web application can access it.

HTTPS certificates

HTTPS certificates are very easy to deal with if you use the yourclient1.yourapp.com, yourclient2.yourapp.com model. You can use a wildcard HTTPS certificate.

If you use the model where second level domains are used, there are multiple ways you can solve this.

This guide focuses on nginx.

1. Use nginx with the lua module

Specifically, you're interested in the ssl_certificate_by_lua_block directive. Nginx doesn't support using variables such as the hostname in the ssl_certificate directive, which is why the lua module is needed.

This approach lets you use one server block for all tenants.

2. Add a simple server block for each tenant

You can store most of your config in a file, such as /etc/nginx/includes/tenant, and include this file into tenant server blocks.

server {
  include includes/tenant;
  server_name foo.bar;
  # ssl_certificate /etc/foo/...;
}

Generating certificates

You can generate a certificate using certbot. If you use the --nginx flag, you will need to run certbot as root. If you use the --webroot flag, you only need the user that runs it to have write access to the webroot directory (or perhaps webroot/.well-known is enough) and some certbot files (you can specify these using --work-dir, --config-dir and --logs-dir).

Creating this config dynamically from PHP is not easy, but is probably feasible. Giving www-data write access to /etc/nginx/sites-available/tenants.conf should work.

However, you still need to reload nginx configuration to apply the changes to configuration. This is problematic and I'm not sure if there is a simple and secure way to do this from PHP.

Testing

If you run the tests of this package, please make sure you don't store anything in Redis @ 127.0.0.1:6379 db#14. The contents of this database are flushed everytime the tests are run.

Some tests are run only if the CI, TRAVIS and CONTINUOUS_INTEGRATION environment variables are set to true. This is to avoid things like bloating your MySQL instance with test databases.