How to get domains to populate in PHP Storm by Jet Brains

DNS propagation may take up to 48 hours rather than the 24 hours you’ve waited up to this point. It’s also vital to ensure that your domain’s DNS settings are correctly pointing to your DigitalOcean droplet.

You can use our DNS tool to ensure the settings are correct:

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tools/dns

If, after the propagation period, the domain is still not showing up, you might want to double-check your PHP Storm settings for anything that might prevent the domain from displaying.

Regards

Heya,

When you’re working with a DigitalOcean droplet and PHPStorm, you need to consider several things in terms of the connection, domain propagation, and file structure.

1. Connecting PHPStorm to your Droplet:

   • You mentioned you’ve set up an SFTP connection in PHPStorm to your droplet. This means you’ve most likely provided the necessary credentials (SSH key or password) to allow PHPStorm to access your server’s file system.

2. Domain Propagation:

   • DNS propagation doesn’t affect your SFTP connection in PHPStorm. It only affects how users on the internet resolve your domain to the IP address of your droplet.
   • You can check the DNS propagation using tools like whatsmydns.net.

3. Domain Connection and File Structure:

   • Your domain doesn’t “automatically populate” inside your droplet. The files and directories you see when connecting via SFTP are the file system of your droplet.
   • If you’ve set up a web server (e.g., Apache, Nginx), there’s usually a specific directory where you need to place your web files. For Apache, this is often /var/www/html, and for Nginx, it’s often /usr/share/nginx/html or /var/www/domain_name.
   • When you point a domain to your droplet, you need to configure your web server to serve files for that domain, often via virtual hosts or server blocks.
   • In PHPStorm’s Remote Host pane, you might need to navigate to the aforementioned directories to find your website’s files.

4. Next Steps:

   • If your goal is to see your domain’s files in PHPStorm, make sure you’ve uploaded your website’s files to the appropriate directory on the droplet.
   • Ensure your web server is configured correctly to serve those files for requests to your domain.
   • If you have multiple domains or sites, you’d typically set up virtual hosts (for Apache) or server blocks (for Nginx) for each domain and point them to their respective directories.

5. PHPStorm Specifics:

   • Ensure you’ve mapped the local and remote directories correctly in PHPStorm. This ensures that when you open a local file, PHPStorm knows where the corresponding remote file is, and vice versa.
   • Check any filters you might have set up for the SFTP connection in PHPStorm, which can hide certain directories or files from view.

In conclusion, while PHPStorm can connect to your droplet and show you files, the actual management of domains and their associated files is handled on the droplet itself, through server configuration and the file system.