php artisan serve

Application Key

The next step you need to do after installing Laravel is to set the project application key.  Application key is a random string and if installed Laravel via Composer or the Laravel installer, this key is already set. You can also set application key by using the following command

php artisan key:generate

Application key is 32 characters long string. You can set this key manually in .env environment file. Application key required for the security purpose if the key is not set, user sessions and other encrypted data will not be secure!

Now you need to set up database connection with the application for this go to “.env” placed in the root directory and add the database credential.

It will look something like this

DB_CONNECTION=mysql

DB_HOST=127.0.0.1

DB_PORT=3306

DB_DATABASE=database

DB_USERNAME=root

DB_PASSWORD=123

Laravel Auth Setup

just Run the following commands to setup Laravel Authorization

php artisan make:auth  
php artisan migrate

composer require laravel/passport

php artisan passport:install

<?php

namespace App;

use Laravel\Passport\HasApiTokens;

use Illuminate\Notifications\Notifiable;

use Illuminate\Foundation\Auth\User as Authenticatable;

class User extends Authenticatable

{

    use HasApiTokens, Notifiable;

}

Now add Passport routes to  AuthServiceProvider by going to app/Providers in your application and opening AuthServiceProvider.php file.

<?php

namespace App\Providers;

use Laravel\Passport\Passport;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Gate;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Support\Providers\AuthServiceProvider as ServiceProvider;

class AuthServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider
{
    /**
     * The policy mappings for the application.
     *
     * @var array
     */
    protected $policies = [
        'App\Model' => 'App\Policies\ModelPolicy',
    ];

    /**
     * Register any authentication / authorization services.
     * @return void
     */

    public function boot()
    {
        $this->registerPolicies();
        Passport::routes();
    }
}

'guards' => [

    'web' => [
        'driver' => 'session',
        'provider' => 'users',
    ],

    'api' => [
        'driver' => 'passport',
        'provider' => 'users',
    ],
],

Now you need to set routes for API requests, to do this go to routes folder and open api.php file and paste the following code to your api.php file.

<?php
use Illuminate\Http\Request;

Route::group([

   'prefix' => 'auth'

], function () {

   Route::post('login', 'AuthController@login');

   Route::post('signup', 'AuthController@signup');

   Route::group([

     'middleware' => 'auth:api'

   ], function() {

       Route::get('logout', 'AuthController@logout');

       Route::get('user', 'AuthController@user');

   });

});

Now you need to create a new controller for API methods. In this tutorial, I have created AuthController you can use any name as per your requirements or just create an AuthController and paste the following code in order to test user login, register functionality

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Auth;
use Carbon\Carbon;
use App\User;

class AuthController extends Controller
{

   /**
    * Create user
    * @param  [string] name
    * @param  [string] email
    * @param  [string] password
    * @param  [string] password_confirmation
    * @return [string] message
    */


   public function signup(Request $request)
   {
       $request->validate([

           'name' => 'required|string',

           'email' => 'required|string|email|unique:users',

           'password' => 'required|string|confirmed'

       ]);

       $user = new User([

           'name' => $request->name,

           'email' => $request->email,

           'password' => bcrypt($request->password)

       ]);

       $user->save();

       return response()->json([
           'message' => 'Successfully created user!'
       ], 201);
   }




   /**
    * Login user and create token
    * @param  [string] email
    * @param  [string] password
    * @param  [boolean] remember_me
    * @return [string] access_token
    * @return [string] token_type
    * @return [string] expires_at
    */

   public function login(Request $request)
   {

       $request->validate([

           'email' => 'required|string|email',

           'password' => 'required|string',

           'remember_me' => 'boolean'

       ]);

       $credentials = request(['email', 'password']);

       if(!Auth::attempt($credentials))

           return response()->json([

               'message' => 'Unauthorized'

           ], 401);

       $user = $request->user();

       $tokenResult = $user->createToken('Personal Access Token');

       $token = $tokenResult->token;

       if ($request->remember_me)

           $token->expires_at = Carbon::now()->addWeeks(1);

       $token->save();

       return response()->json([

           'access_token' => $tokenResult->accessToken,

           'token_type' => 'Bearer',

           'expires_at' => Carbon::parse(

               $tokenResult->token->expires_at

           )->toDateTimeString()
       ]);
   }


   /**
    * Logout user (Revoke the token)
    *
    * @return [string] message
    */

   public function logout(Request $request)
   {
       $request->user()->token()->revoke();
       return response()->json([
           'message' => 'Successfully logged out'
       ]);
   }



   /**
    * Get the authenticated User
    *
    * @return [json] user object
    */

   public function user(Request $request)
   {
       return response()->json($request->user());
   }
}

Now you can use Postman or any other Rest Client Tools. I prefer Postman to test and shared working screenshots.
In order to use API you need to set two headers as listed below

Content-Type: application/json

X-Requested-With: XMLHttpRequest