Laravel Multiple Database Connections

In this article, we will discuss the “Laravel Multiple Database Connections”. In some conditions, we need to connect multiple databases to the Laravel application. Let’s see how we implement multiple database connections in Laravel 5.7.

Prerequisites

We need a fresh Laravel setup where we implement our example.

Database Configuration without .env

In Laravel, database configuration file is located at “config/database.php”. Here we can define more than one database connection of any type. If your application use data from two different MySql database then you can define them easily.

<?php
return => [
    'connections' => [
        // Default database connection
        'mysql' => [
            'driver' => 'mysql',
            'host' => env('DB_HOST', '127.0.0.1'),
            'port' => env('DB_PORT', '3306'),
            'database' => env('DB_DATABASE', 'forge'),
            'username' => env('DB_USERNAME', 'forge'),
            'password' => env('DB_PASSWORD', ''),
            'unix_socket' => env('DB_SOCKET', ''),
            'charset' => 'utf8mb4',
            'collation' => 'utf8mb4_unicode_ci',
            'prefix' => '',
            'strict' => true,
            'engine' => null,
        ],

        // Custom database connection
        'mysql2' => [
            'driver' => 'mysql',
            'host' => 'localhost',
            'port' => '3306',
            'database' => 'lara_multiple',
            'username' => 'root',
            'password' => '',
            'unix_socket' => '',
            'charset' => 'utf8mb4',
            'collation' => 'utf8mb4_unicode_ci',
            'prefix' => '',
            'strict' => true,
            'engine' => null,
        ],
    ]
]

Database Configuration with .env

Update your “config/database.php” with following code snippet.

<?php

return => [
    'connections' => [
        // Custom database connection
        'mysql2' => [
            'driver'    => env('DB_CONNECTION_SECOND'),
            'host'      => env('DB_HOST_SECOND'),
            'port'      => env('DB_PORT_SECOND'),
            'database'  => env('DB_DATABASE_SECOND'),
            'username'  => env('DB_USERNAME_SECOND'),
            'password'  => env('DB_PASSWORD_SECOND'),
            ...
        ],
    ]
]

After updating the You need to add following code snippet in your “.env” file.

DB_CONNECTION_SECOND=mysql
DB_HOST_SECOND=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT_SECOND=3306
DB_DATABASE_SECOND=multi_lara
DB_USERNAME_SECOND=root
DB_PASSWORD_SECOND=

Custom Connection in Migration

You can use the following example for how to use the custom connection in your migration.

<?php

...

public function up()
{
    Schema::connection('mysql2')->create('multipost', function (Blueprint $table) {
        $table->increments('id');
        $table->string('post_title');
        $table->string('post_content');
        $table->timestamps();
    });
}

...

After creating your migration time to execute our migrations for the specific database connection.

php artisan migrate --database=mysql2

Sometimes we face error when we execute the migrate command. Such as:

You can fix this kind of issues via using “config:cache” artisan command.

php artisan config:cache

Custom connection with Model

Set the “$connection” variable in your model.

<?php

class SomeModel extends Eloquent {

    protected $connection = 'mysql2';

}

Custom connection with Controller

You can also define the connection in your controller using “setConnection” method.

<?php

class SomeController extends BaseController
{
    public function someMethod()
    {
        $someModel = new SomeModel;
        $someModel->setConnection('mysql2');
        $something = $someModel->find(1);
        return $something;
    }
}

Custom connection with Query Builder

You can also define a connection on the query builder.

DB::connection('mysql2')->select(...)->(...);

Conclusion

In this article, we will discuss Laravel Multiple Database Connections. Thanks for reading this article. Please feel free to add the comment or submit your feedback 🙂

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