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Installation

Before diving into provider-specific configurations, ensure you have completed the initial setup steps outlined in our quick start guide. If you’re looking for an easier way to deploy Nightwatch, consider using Laravel Cloud or Laravel Forge, which offer streamlined setup processes.

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Linux Servers

The instructions below are tailored for Ubuntu systems. If you’re running a different Linux distribution, you may need to adjust the commands accordingly. After installing the Nightwatch package via Composer, add your environment variables to your application’s .env file: 
NIGHTWATCH_TOKEN=your-api-key
NIGHTWATCH_REQUEST_SAMPLE_RATE=0.1
NIGHTWATCH_COMMAND_SAMPLE_RATE=1.0
NIGHTWATCH_EXCEPTION_SAMPLE_RATE=1.0
Important: If you add or modify the NIGHTWATCH_TOKEN after starting the service, you will need to restart the service for the changes to take effect.

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Running as a Systemd Service

For production deployments, we recommend running the Nightwatch agent as a systemd service since systemd is installed by default on every Ubuntu system. This ensures the agent starts automatically on boot and restarts if it ever crashes. First, create a new service file: 
sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/nightwatch-agent.service
Then, add the following configuration: 
[Unit]
Description=Laravel Nightwatch Agent
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=www-data
Group=www-data
WorkingDirectory=/var/www/your-app
ExecStart=/usr/bin/php artisan nightwatch:agent
Restart=always
RestartSec=5

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Finally, enable and start the service: 
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable nightwatch-agent
sudo systemctl start nightwatch-agent
You can check the service status at any time: 
sudo systemctl status nightwatch-agent

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Using Supervisor

If you prefer Supervisor over systemd, follow these steps to set it up: 
sudo apt install supervisor
Create a configuration file: 
sudo nano /etc/supervisor/conf.d/nightwatch-agent.conf
Add the configuration: 
[program:nightwatch-agent]
process_name=%(program_name)s
command=php /var/www/your-app/artisan nightwatch:agent
directory=/var/www/your-app
autostart=true
autorestart=true
user=www-data
numprocs=1
redirect_stderr=true
stdout_logfile=/var/log/supervisor/nightwatch-agent.log
Update Supervisor and start the process: 
sudo supervisorctl reread
sudo supervisorctl update
sudo supervisorctl start nightwatch-agent

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Monitoring

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Health Checks

The Nightwatch agent includes a built-in status command: 
php artisan nightwatch:status
This command exits with a non-zero status code if there are any connectivity issues, making it ideal for monitoring scripts.