Docker
Last modified on Thu 27 Jan 2022

In order to install a WordPress development environment on Docker, you'll need to install Docker and use docker-compose.

For setting up docker with SSL enabled you can check the wordpress-docker repository.

After adding those files, from your terminal, run the following command

docker-compose up -d

This will build a Docker container and image with the specified settings from the .yml file in the detached state.

For more information about setting up and using Docker with WordPress, click here.

You can see if the containers are running by typing

docker ps --all

You should see something like

CONTAINER ID    IMAGE                     COMMAND                  CREATED         STATUS         PORTS                                   NAMES
353c53e7721b    nginx                     "nginx -g 'daemon of…"   8 seconds ago   Up 5 seconds   0.0.0.0:8010->80/tcp                    wp-docker-nginx
8cf9f52c0540    wordpress:5.1.1-fpm       "docker-entrypoint.s…"   9 seconds ago   Up 7 seconds   80/tcp, 9000/tcp                        wp-docker-app
e1f1d0799b40    mysql:5.7                 "docker-entrypoint.s…"   10 seconds ago  Up 8 seconds   33060/tcp, 0.0.0.0:33066->3306/tcp      wp-docker-db
352d5f6f64a9    phpmyadmin/phpmyadmin     "/run.sh supervisord…"   10 seconds ago  Up 8 seconds   9000/tcp, 0.0.0.0:8181->80/tcp          wp-docker-phpmyadmin

Your project will be available on https://your.custom.url.test:8443.

Another way of using Docker is to use Dockerfile, which is especially useful when working on continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD). For instance, one such Dockerfile can look like this

# Stage 0, build app
FROM php:7.2-fpm as build-container

RUN curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php \
  && chmod +x composer.phar && mv composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer

RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y gnupg
RUN curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_8.x | bash - && \
    apt-get install -yq nodejs build-essential \
        git unzip \
        libfreetype6-dev \
        libjpeg62-turbo-dev \
        libmcrypt-dev \
        libpng-dev \
    && curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_8.x | bash - \
    && pecl install mcrypt-1.0.1 \
    && docker-php-ext-enable mcrypt \
    && docker-php-ext-configure gd --with-freetype-dir=/usr/include/ --with-jpeg-dir=/usr/include/ \
    && docker-php-ext-install -j$(nproc) gd \
    && docker-php-ext-install -j$(nproc) mysqli

RUN npm install -g npm

WORKDIR /build
COPY . /build
RUN cp /build/wp-config.php.template /build/wp-config.php
RUN bash /build/scripts/build-plugins.sh

# Stage 1, build app container
FROM php:7.2-fpm

RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y \
        libfreetype6-dev \
        libjpeg62-turbo-dev \
        libmcrypt-dev \
        libpng-dev \
        unzip \
        mysql-client \
    && docker-php-ext-configure gd --with-freetype-dir=/usr/include/ --with-jpeg-dir=/usr/include/ \
    && docker-php-ext-install -j$(nproc) gd \
    && docker-php-ext-install -j$(nproc) iconv \
    && docker-php-ext-install -j$(nproc) mysqli \
    && docker-php-ext-install gd mysqli opcache zip

ADD https://downloads.wordpress.org/release/wordpress-4.9.8-no-content.zip /var/www/latest.zip
RUN cd /var/www && unzip latest.zip && rm latest.zip
RUN rm -rf /var/www/html
RUN mkdir -p /var/www/html/ \
    && mv /var/www/wordpress/* /var/www/html/

# Copy wp files
COPY --from=build-container /build/ /var/www/html/
RUN chown www-data:www-data /var/www/html/ -R
COPY config/php.ini /usr/local/etc/php/
WORKDIR /var/www/html/

CMD ["exec","php-fpm"]

This Dockerfile will first build a local container with PHP, composer, and node. At that stage, your theme/plugins can be built. It also contains the RUN bash bin/build-plugins.sh command. You can replace this with your installation script (be it for plugins or theme). You'll place composer and npm builds in that shell script.

After that, you'll build the WordPress container and copy the plugins built in the previous stage. You can modify this to your liking. Beside this, you'll probably need a Docker image for nginx. But we won't be going into too much detail about it.

If you named this file Dockerfile, you'll run

docker build -t yourtag .

In case you named it something like Dockerfile.php (if you need multiple stages and builds), you'll run

docker build -t yourtag -f Dockerfile.php .

The Dockerfiles should be located in the root of your project.

To go in the interactive shell of the built image, type

docker run -it CONTAINER_NAME bash

If that fails, you can try

docker run -d CONTAINER_NAME
docker exec -it CONTAINER_NAME bash

Running the docker run with -d means that you are detaching it, and you can check the logs created while building it.

Useful Docker commands

Here are some useful Docker commands you might use.

List all containers

docker ps -as

List all images

docker images

Stop all running containers

docker stop $(docker ps -aq)

Remove all containers

docker rm $(docker ps -a -q)

Remove all images

docker rmi $(docker images -q)

Prune the system from unused images, containers, and networks documentation link

docker system prune

Docker notes

Depending on your project, the Docker compose or Dockerfile may differ. For more information, consult your friendly DevOps.

Useful links

Structuring the Docker setup for PHP projects