Bookstack is an Open-source, Laravel based application for creating (and sharing) notes. The jury is still out on how great it is as I just started using it today.
While following the “Manual Installation” option, we ran into a problem we suspect other people might also run into if they’re following the instructions to the letter. When you try to visit your site, you will notice that you are being redirected to http://example.com. What is going on?
Simply put, you are being redirected to this domain because the manual never told you that you need to define the base URL for your Booktstack installation. But don’t worry, we’re here to explain exactly how to do that.
How to fix the redirect
Start by opening the .env file in your favorite command line editor.
Once the .env file is open, look down to where you see an entry for APP_URL=https://example.com
Change this URL to the base URL that you want to use for your Bookstack installation. When that is done, save the .env file.
Try visiting the URL again, and you’ll be presented with the login screen and you can finally start writing those books / documentation / notes.