This script fixes permissions and ownership of your laravel files. Save it on the root of your project, make it executable and edit only the two lines indicated at the beginning of the script to set your username and the name of the group used by your web server (usually www-data). Then just run with sudo ( sudo ./fix.sh ) and start coding!

fix.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash

#Configure these two variables
MYUSER="joel"
APACHEGROUP="www-data"


#you don't need to edit anything below.

echo "Setting variables..."
SCRIPTPATH=`pwd -P`
BOOTSTRAP="${SCRIPTPATH}/bootstrap/"
BOOTSTRAPCACHE="${SCRIPTPATH}/bootstrap/cache/"
STORAGE="${SCRIPTPATH}/storage"
LOGS="${STORAGE}/logs"
FRAMEWORK="${STORAGE}/framework"


#add my user to the web server group
echo "adding ${MYUSER} to the ${APACHEGROUP} group ..."
usermod -a -G ${APACHEGROUP} ${MYUSER}



#if bootstrap/cache does not exist, create it
if [ ! -d ${BOOTSTRAPCACHE} ]; then
    echo "Creating ${BOOTSTRAPCACHE} directory..."
    mkdir -p ${BOOTSTRAPCACHE}
fi

#if we don't have a .gitignore file in bootstrap/cache, add it
if [ ! -f ${BOOTSTRAPCACHE}/.gitignore ]; then
    echo "Creating .gitignore file in ${BOOTSTRAPCACHE}/..."
    echo '*' > ${BOOTSTRAPCACHE}/.gitignore
    echo '!.gitignore' >> ${BOOTSTRAPCACHE}/.gitignore
fi


#if storage dir does not exist, create it.
if [ ! -d ${STORAGE} ]; then
    echo "Creating ${STORAGE} directory"
    mkdir -p ${STORAGE}
fi


#then, make sure we have debugbar, framework and logs inside storage
#debugbar is not installed by default, but it does not hurt to have it's directory there , ready for when you install it
for DIR in debugbar framework logs db_backups
do
    if [ ! -d ${STORAGE}/${DIR} ]; then
        echo "Creating ${STORAGE}/${DIR} directory..."
        mkdir -p ${STORAGE}/${DIR}
    else
        echo "Checking for existance of  ${STORAGE}/${DIR}...  It exists"
    fi
done

#if we don't have a .gitignore file in storage/framework, add it
if [ ! -f ${FRAMEWORK}/.gitignore ]; then
    echo "Creating .gitignore file in ${FRAMEWORK}..."
    echo 'compiled.php' > ${FRAMEWORK}/.gitignore
    echo 'config.php' >> ${FRAMEWORK}/.gitignore
    echo 'down' >> ${FRAMEWORK}/.gitignore
    echo 'events.scanned.php' >> ${FRAMEWORK}/.gitignore
    echo 'maintenance.php' >> ${FRAMEWORK}/.gitignore
    echo 'routes.php' >> ${FRAMEWORK}/.gitignore
    echo 'routes.scanned.php' >> ${FRAMEWORK}/.gitignore
    echo 'schedule-*' >> ${FRAMEWORK}/.gitignore
    echo 'services.json' >> ${FRAMEWORK}/.gitignore
fi


#then, make sure we have  cache, sessions, testing and views inside storage/framework
for DIR in cache sessions testing views
do
    if [ ! -d ${FRAMEWORK}/${DIR} ]; then
        echo "Creating ${FRAMEWORK}/${DIR} directory..."
        mkdir -p ${FRAMEWORK}/${DIR}
    else
        echo "Checking for existance of  ${FRAMEWORK}/${DIR}...  It exists"
    fi
done


#then, make sure we have a storage/framework/cache/data directory
if [ ! -d ${FRAMEWORK}/cache/data ]; then
    echo "Creating ${FRAMEWORK}/cache/data directory..."
    mkdir -p ${FRAMEWORK}/cache/data
else
    echo "Checking for existance of  ${FRAMEWORK}/cache/data...  It exists"
fi



#if we don't have a .gitignore file in storage/framework/cache/data, add it
if [ ! -f ${FRAMEWORK}/cache/data/.gitignore ]; then
    echo "Creating .gitignore file in ${FRAMEWORK}/cache/data/..."
    echo '*' > ${FRAMEWORK}/cache/data/.gitignore
    echo '!data/' >> ${FRAMEWORK}/cache/data/.gitignore
    echo '!.gitignore' >> ${FRAMEWORK}/cache/data/.gitignore
fi

#if we don't have a .gitignore file in storage/framework/sessions/, add it
if [ ! -f ${FRAMEWORK}/sessions/.gitignore ]; then
    echo "Creating .gitignore file in ${FRAMEWORK}/sessions/..."
    echo '*' > ${FRAMEWORK}/sessions/.gitignore
    echo '!.gitignore' >> ${FRAMEWORK}/sessions/.gitignore
fi

#if we don't have a .gitignore file in storage/framework/testing/, add it
if [ ! -f ${FRAMEWORK}/testing/.gitignore ]; then
    echo "Creating .gitignore file in ${FRAMEWORK}/testing/..."
    echo '*' > ${FRAMEWORK}/testing/.gitignore
    echo '!.gitignore' >> ${FRAMEWORK}/testing/.gitignore
fi

#if we don't have a .gitignore file in storage/framework/views/, add it
if [ ! -f ${FRAMEWORK}/views/.gitignore ]; then
    echo "Creating .gitignore file in ${FRAMEWORK}/views/..."
    echo '*' > ${FRAMEWORK}/views/.gitignore
    echo '!.gitignore' >> ${FRAMEWORK}/views/.gitignore
fi


#make my user and the apache group  own everything in the directory
echo "Fixing ownership on everything..."
chown -R ${MYUSER}:${APACHEGROUP} ${SCRIPTPATH}

#change permissions on files to 644
echo "Setting permissions 0644 on all files... (excluding vendor, node_modules and .git directories)"
find ${SCRIPTPATH} -type f -not -path "${SCRIPTPATH}/vendor/*" -not -path "${SCRIPTPATH}/node_modules/*"  -not -path "${SCRIPTPATH}/.git/*" -exec chmod 0644 {} \;


#change permissions on directories to 755
echo "Setting permissions 0755 on all directories... (excluding vendor, node_modules and .git directories)"
find ${SCRIPTPATH} -type d -not -path "${SCRIPTPATH}/vendor/*" -not -path "${SCRIPTPATH}/node_modules/*"  -not -path "${SCRIPTPATH}/.git/*" -exec chmod 0755 {} \;

#change permissions on bootstrap/cache to 775
echo "Setting permissions 0775 on bootstrap/cache"
chmod 0775 ${BOOTSTRAPCACHE}

#change permissions on the php files that live in bootstrap/cache to 0775
echo "Setting permissions 0775 on php files in bootstrap/cache"
chmod 0775 ${BOOTSTRAPCACHE}/*.php

#if i have any bash scripts in there, make them executable
echo "Making any existing shell scripts executable"
find ${SCRIPTPATH} -type f -iname "*.sh" -exec chmod +x {} \;

#finally fix permissions on storage
echo "Setting 0775 permissions on ${STORAGE}..."
chmod -R 0775 ${STORAGE}