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Adnan Babakan (he/him)
Adnan Babakan (he/him)

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Dockerizing Laravel (With compose) [Alpine + NGINX + PHP FPM + MariaDB + PHPMyAdmin] 🛳️🛳️

Hey there DEV.to community!

In the last part, we've covered how to dockerize a Laravel app. That was a great way to know how stuff goes around in a docker container and get you started before moving to the next level!

Although it is possible to run all your requirements inside a single container it is not a great practice. (Thanks to @yuhenobi)

In this part, we will go through a better-architectured solution using docker compose.

What's a docker compose?

Compose is a tool for defining and running multi-container Docker applications. With Compose, you use a YAML file to configure your application's services. Then, with a single command, you create and start all the services from your configuration.

This is the definition of docker's compose tool by its official documentation. I believe it is the simplest description you'll find of it.

But let me explain how docker compose can make your life easier.

Imagine you want to run a nginx container to serve for your laravel app. The amount of arguments you have to put in can grow radically very fast very soon because you probably want to configure it to your needs.

This is how a simple nginx container should start along with its volume:

docker run --name some-nginx -v /some/content:/usr/share/nginx/html:ro -d nginx
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Now imagine that you want to publish the port of your container to the host:

docker run --name nginx -v /nginx/html:/usr/share/nginx/html -p "8000:80" -d nginx
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And the command grows bigger and bigger. It is hard to handle such commands and remembering all the options is pretty hard at times.

Docker compose is a simple YAML file that you can store your configuration of how one or more containers should run and how they interact with each other and so on.

So the composer configuration for the aforementioned command looks like below:

services:
    nginx:
        image: nginx
        volumes:
            - /nginx/html:/usr/share/nginx/html
        ports:
            - 8000:80
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Saving this configuration inside a file called docker-compose.yml and running the command below will result in the same as before:

docker compose up -d
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The flag -d stands for detached. It means send the process to the background when it's done. If you omit adding this flag the containers defined in the compose file will stop if you exit the process.

Laravel Dockerfile

Before everything else we need to dockerize Laravel. I chose php:8.2-fpm-alpine3.19 as my base image since it has a small image size since it is based on alpine and fpm gives you the speed you need for your application!

Create a file called Dockerfile.laravel and put the code below in it:

FROM php:8.2-fpm-alpine3.19 AS build

ARG APP_NAME
ARG APP_ENV
ARG APP_KEY
ARG APP_DEBUG
ARG APP_URL
ARG LOG_CHANNEL
ARG LOG_DEPRECATIONS_CHANNEL
ARG LOG_LEVEL
ARG DB_CONNECTION
ARG DB_HOST
ARG DB_PORT
ARG DB_DATABASE
ARG DB_USERNAME
ARG DB_PASSWORD
ARG BROADCAST_DRIVER
ARG CACHE_DRIVER
ARG FILESYSTEM_DISK
ARG QUEUE_CONNECTION
ARG SESSION_DRIVER
ARG SESSION_LIFETIME
ARG MEMCACHED_HOST
ARG REDIS_HOST
ARG REDIS_PASSWORD
ARG REDIS_PORT
ARG MAIL_MAILER
ARG MAIL_HOST
ARG MAIL_PORT
ARG MAIL_USERNAME
ARG MAIL_PASSWORD
ARG MAIL_ENCRYPTION
ARG MAIL_FROM_ADDRESS
ARG MAIL_FROM_NAME
ARG AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID
ARG AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
ARG AWS_DEFAULT_REGION
ARG AWS_BUCKET
ARG AWS_USE_PATH_STYLE_ENDPOINT
ARG PUSHER_APP_ID
ARG PUSHER_APP_KEY
ARG PUSHER_APP_SECRET
ARG PUSHER_HOST
ARG PUSHER_PORT
ARG PUSHER_SCHEME
ARG PUSHER_APP_CLUSTER
ARG VITE_APP_NAME
ARG VITE_PUSHER_APP_KEY
ARG VITE_PUSHER_HOST
ARG VITE_PUSHER_PORT
ARG VITE_PUSHER_SCHEME
ARG VITE_PUSHER_APP_CLUSTER
ARG BUCKET_ENDPOINT_URL
ARG BUCKET_ACCESS_KEY
ARG BUCKET_SECRET_KEY
ARG BUCKET_DEFAULT_REGION
ARG BUCKET_NAME

RUN apk add php-session \
    php-tokenizer \
    php-xml \
    php-ctype \
    php-curl \
    php-dom \
    php-fileinfo \
    php-mbstring \
    php-openssl \
    php-pdo \
    php-pdo_mysql \
    php-session \
    php-tokenizer \
    php-xml \
    php-ctype \
    php-xmlwriter \
    php-simplexml \
    composer


RUN docker-php-ext-install mysqli pdo_mysql
RUN docker-php-ext-enable mysqli pdo_mysql

RUN apk add --update nodejs npm

COPY . /var/www/html

WORKDIR /var/www/html

RUN printf "\
APP_NAME=$APP_NAME\n\
APP_ENV=$APP_ENV\n\
APP_KEY=$APP_KEY\n\
APP_DEBUG=$APP_DEBUG\n\
APP_URL=$APP_URL\n\
LOG_CHANNEL=$LOG_CHANNEL\n\
LOG_DEPRECATIONS_CHANNEL=$LOG_DEPRECATIONS_CHANNEL\n\
LOG_LEVEL=$LOG_LEVEL\n\
DB_CONNECTION=$DB_CONNECTION\n\
DB_HOST=$DB_HOST\n\
DB_PORT=$DB_PORT\n\
DB_DATABASE=$DB_DATABASE\n\
DB_USERNAME=$DB_USERNAME\n\
DB_PASSWORD=$DB_PASSWORD\n\
BROADCAST_DRIVER=$BROADCAST_DRIVER\n\
CACHE_DRIVER=$CACHE_DRIVER\n\
FILESYSTEM_DISK=$FILESYSTEM_DISK\n\
QUEUE_CONNECTION=$QUEUE_CONNECTION\n\
SESSION_DRIVER=$SESSION_DRIVER\n\
SESSION_LIFETIME=$SESSION_LIFETIME\n\
MEMCACHED_HOST=$MEMCACHED_HOST\n\
REDIS_HOST=$REDIS_HOST\n\
REDIS_PASSWORD=$REDIS_PASSWORD\n\
REDIS_PORT=$REDIS_PORT\n\
MAIL_MAILER=$MAIL_MAILER\n\
MAIL_HOST=$MAIL_HOST\n\
MAIL_PORT=$MAIL_PORT\n\
MAIL_USERNAME=$MAIL_USERNAME\n\
MAIL_PASSWORD=$MAIL_PASSWORD\n\
MAIL_ENCRYPTION=$MAIL_ENCRYPTION\n\
MAIL_FROM_ADDRESS=$MAIL_FROM_ADDRESS\n\
MAIL_FROM_NAME=$MAIL_FROM_NAME\n\
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=$AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID\n\
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=$AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY\n\
AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=$AWS_DEFAULT_REGION\n\
AWS_BUCKET=$AWS_BUCKET\n\
AWS_USE_PATH_STYLE_ENDPOINT=$AWS_USE_PATH_STYLE_ENDPOINT\n\
PUSHER_APP_ID=$PUSHER_APP_ID\n\
PUSHER_APP_KEY=$PUSHER_APP_KEY\n\
PUSHER_APP_SECRET=$PUSHER_APP_SECRET\n\
PUSHER_HOST=$PUSHER_HOST\n\
PUSHER_PORT=$PUSHER_PORT\n\
PUSHER_SCHEME=$PUSHER_SCHEME\n\
PUSHER_APP_CLUSTER=$PUSHER_APP_CLUSTER\n\
VITE_APP_NAME=$VITE_APP_NAME\n\
VITE_PUSHER_APP_KEY=$VITE_PUSHER_APP_KEY\n\
VITE_PUSHER_HOST=$VITE_PUSHER_HOST\n\
VITE_PUSHER_PORT=$VITE_PUSHER_PORT\n\
VITE_PUSHER_SCHEME=$VITE_PUSHER_SCHEME\n\
VITE_PUSHER_APP_CLUSTER=$VITE_PUSHER_APP_CLUSTER\n\
BUCKET_ENDPOINT_URL=$BUCKET_ENDPOINT_URL\n\
BUCKET_ACCESS_KEY=$BUCKET_ACCESS_KEY\n\
BUCKET_SECRET_KEY=$BUCKET_SECRET_KEY\n\
BUCKET_DEFAULT_REGION=$BUCKET_DEFAULT_REGION\n\
BUCKET_NAME=$BUCKET_NAME" > /usr/local/laravel.env

RUN composer install
RUN npm install

EXPOSE 9000

RUN printf "\
chmod -R o+w /var/www/html/storage\n\
chown -R root:root /var/www/html/storage\n\
cp /usr/local/laravel.env /var/www/html/.env\n\
php-fpm\n\
" > /start.sh

RUN chmod +x "/start.sh"

ENTRYPOINT "/start.sh"
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When you need more than one Dockerfile the convention is to name it like Dockerfile.[NAME].

So let's dive into the Dockerfile and see what's happening.

First of all, we define our base image:

FROM php:8.2-fpm-alpine3.19 AS build
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Then define the ARGs that we are going to use as our Laravel application's env.

ARG APP_NAME
ARG APP_ENV
ARG APP_KEY
ARG APP_DEBUG
ARG APP_URL
ARG LOG_CHANNEL
ARG LOG_DEPRECATIONS_CHANNEL
ARG LOG_LEVEL
ARG DB_CONNECTION
ARG DB_HOST
ARG DB_PORT
ARG DB_DATABASE
ARG DB_USERNAME
ARG DB_PASSWORD
ARG BROADCAST_DRIVER
ARG CACHE_DRIVER
ARG FILESYSTEM_DISK
ARG QUEUE_CONNECTION
ARG SESSION_DRIVER
ARG SESSION_LIFETIME
...
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After defining the base image and ARGs we need to install the requirements of Laravel so it can run on this container:

RUN apk add php-session \
    php-tokenizer \
    php-xml \
    php-ctype \
    php-curl \
    php-dom \
    php-fileinfo \
    php-mbstring \
    php-openssl \
    php-pdo \
    php-pdo_mysql \
    php-session \
    php-tokenizer \
    php-xml \
    php-ctype \
    php-xmlwriter \
    php-simplexml \
    composer
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I've omitted git and other tools that are not absolute requirements of Laravel but you can add them if you wish.

Then using a great tool called docker-php-ext-install which is already installed in the base image we chose, we enable MySQL extension:

RUN docker-php-ext-install mysqli pdo_mysql
RUN docker-php-ext-enable mysqli pdo_mysql
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To see the supported PHP extensions you can enable using docker-php-ext-install visit here.

Some Laravel apps need Node to run if you are using Laravel as a full-stack framework. So installing Node.js is a must:

RUN apk add --update nodejs npm
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Then simply copy the current directory inside /var/www/html and change the working directory as well:

COPY . /var/www/html
WORKDIR /var/www/html
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Well, this part gets a little tricky but it is pretty simple. Since we are going to mount /var/www/html as a volume to be shared between other containers, the data inside this directory cannot be changed while building the image and needs to be changed after the container has run. Thus, we need to create a .env file and copy it into the Laravel directory later on:

RUN printf "\
APP_NAME=$APP_NAME\n\
APP_ENV=$APP_ENV\n\
APP_KEY=$APP_KEY\n\
APP_DEBUG=$APP_DEBUG\n\
APP_URL=$APP_URL\n\
LOG_CHANNEL=$LOG_CHANNEL\n\
LOG_DEPRECATIONS_CHANNEL=$LOG_DEPRECATIONS_CHANNEL\n\
LOG_LEVEL=$LOG_LEVEL\n\
DB_CONNECTION=$DB_CONNECTION\n\
DB_HOST=$DB_HOST\n\
DB_PORT=$DB_PORT\n\
DB_DATABASE=$DB_DATABASE\n\
DB_USERNAME=$DB_USERNAME\n\
DB_PASSWORD=$DB_PASSWORD\n\
BROADCAST_DRIVER=$BROADCAST_DRIVER\n\
CACHE_DRIVER=$CACHE_DRIVER\n\
FILESYSTEM_DISK=$FILESYSTEM_DISK\n\
QUEUE_CONNECTION=$QUEUE_CONNECTION\n\
SESSION_DRIVER=$SESSION_DRIVER\n\
SESSION_LIFETIME=$SESSION_LIFETIME\n\
MEMCACHED_HOST=$MEMCACHED_HOST\n\
REDIS_HOST=$REDIS_HOST\n\
REDIS_PASSWORD=$REDIS_PASSWORD\n\
REDIS_PORT=$REDIS_PORT\n\
MAIL_MAILER=$MAIL_MAILER\n\
MAIL_HOST=$MAIL_HOST\n\
MAIL_PORT=$MAIL_PORT\n\
MAIL_USERNAME=$MAIL_USERNAME\n\
MAIL_PASSWORD=$MAIL_PASSWORD\n\
MAIL_ENCRYPTION=$MAIL_ENCRYPTION\n\
MAIL_FROM_ADDRESS=$MAIL_FROM_ADDRESS\n\
MAIL_FROM_NAME=$MAIL_FROM_NAME\n\
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=$AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID\n\
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=$AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY\n\
AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=$AWS_DEFAULT_REGION\n\
AWS_BUCKET=$AWS_BUCKET\n\
AWS_USE_PATH_STYLE_ENDPOINT=$AWS_USE_PATH_STYLE_ENDPOINT\n\
PUSHER_APP_ID=$PUSHER_APP_ID\n\
PUSHER_APP_KEY=$PUSHER_APP_KEY\n\
PUSHER_APP_SECRET=$PUSHER_APP_SECRET\n\
PUSHER_HOST=$PUSHER_HOST\n\
PUSHER_PORT=$PUSHER_PORT\n\
PUSHER_SCHEME=$PUSHER_SCHEME\n\
PUSHER_APP_CLUSTER=$PUSHER_APP_CLUSTER\n\
VITE_APP_NAME=$VITE_APP_NAME\n\
VITE_PUSHER_APP_KEY=$VITE_PUSHER_APP_KEY\n\
VITE_PUSHER_HOST=$VITE_PUSHER_HOST\n\
VITE_PUSHER_PORT=$VITE_PUSHER_PORT\n\
VITE_PUSHER_SCHEME=$VITE_PUSHER_SCHEME\n\
VITE_PUSHER_APP_CLUSTER=$VITE_PUSHER_APP_CLUSTER\n\
BUCKET_ENDPOINT_URL=$BUCKET_ENDPOINT_URL\n\
BUCKET_ACCESS_KEY=$BUCKET_ACCESS_KEY\n\
BUCKET_SECRET_KEY=$BUCKET_SECRET_KEY\n\
BUCKET_DEFAULT_REGION=$BUCKET_DEFAULT_REGION\n\
BUCKET_NAME=$BUCKET_NAME" > /usr/local/laravel.env
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I've saved this file /usr/local/laravel.env which will be used in our custom start-up script.

Now it's time to install PHP and Node.js dependencies:

RUN composer install
RUN npm install
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And expose port 9000. This port is used by PHP-FPM:

EXPOSE 9000
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In the next step we need to create a custom start-up script as bellow:

RUN printf "\
chmod -R o+w /var/www/html/storage\n\
chown -R root:root /var/www/html/storage\n\
cp /usr/local/laravel.env /var/www/html/.env\n\
php-fpm\n\
" > /start.sh
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This is done since only one command can be run inside a container and a container will stop when the command has been completed.

Give the script permission to be executed:

RUN chmod +x "/start.sh"
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And finally, set it as our entrypoint:

ENTRYPOINT "/start.sh"
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NGINX Dockerfile

We need some customization to run NGINX the way we need it.

Create a file called Dockerfile.nginx and put the code below in it:

FROM nginx:stable-alpine AS base

RUN printf "\
    server {\n\
        listen 80;\n\
        index index.php index.html;\n\
        error_log  /var/log/nginx/error.log;\n\
        access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log;\n\
        root /var/www/html/public;\n\
        location ~ \.php$ {\n\
            try_files \$uri =404;\n\
            fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;\n\
            fastcgi_pass laravel:9000;\n\
            fastcgi_index index.php;\n\
            include fastcgi_params;\n\
            fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME \$document_root\$fastcgi_script_name;\n\
            fastcgi_param PATH_INFO \$fastcgi_path_info;\n\
        }\n\
        location / {\n\
            try_files \$uri \$uri/ /index.php?\$query_string;\n\
            gzip_static on;\n\
        }\n\
    }\n" > /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf

EXPOSE 80

CMD ["nginx", "-g", "daemon off;"]
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This Dockerfile uses FROM nginx:stable-alpine as its base image.

We need to customize the way NGINX behaves to meet Laravel's requirements. The configuration that is saved inside /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf is the configuration recommended by Laravel's official documentation with a few minor tweaks:

  • Changed the fast_cgi address to laravel:9000 which will be available inside a private network we will define late inside a docker-compose.yml file.
  • Changed the root of our website to /var/www/html/public

Docker compose

Now that we have our customized Laravel and NGINX images, it is time to define the relation of these images and a few more images.

Create a file called docker-compose.yml and put the code below in it:

name: my-laravel

networks:
  laravel-network:
    driver: bridge

volumes:
  laravel-db:
    driver: local
  laravel-app:
    driver: local

services:
    laravel:
        build:
            context: .
            dockerfile: Dockerfile.laravel
            args:
              - APP_NAME=Laravel
              - APP_ENV=local
              - APP_KEY=
              - APP_DEBUG=true
              - APP_URL=YOUR_APP_URL
              - LOG_CHANNEL=stack
              - LOG_DEPRECATIONS_CHANNEL=null
              - LOG_LEVEL=debug
              - DB_CONNECTION=mysql
              - DB_HOST=db
              - DB_PORT=3306
              - DB_DATABASE=laravel
              - DB_USERNAME=root
              - DB_PASSWORD=DATABASE_PASSWORD
              - BROADCAST_DRIVER=log
              - CACHE_DRIVER=file
              - FILESYSTEM_DISK=minio
              - QUEUE_CONNECTION=sync
              - SESSION_DRIVER=file
              - SESSION_LIFETIME=120
              - MEMCACHED_HOST=127.0.0.1
              - REDIS_HOST=127.0.0.1
              - REDIS_PASSWORD=null
              - REDIS_PORT=6379
              - MAIL_MAILER=smtp
              - MAIL_HOST=mailpit
              - MAIL_PORT=1025
              - MAIL_USERNAME=null
              - MAIL_PASSWORD=null
              - MAIL_ENCRYPTION=null
              - MAIL_FROM_ADDRESS="hello@example.com"
              - MAIL_FROM_NAME="${APP_NAME}"
              - AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=us-east-1
              - AWS_USE_PATH_STYLE_ENDPOINT=false
              - PUSHER_PORT=443
              - PUSHER_SCHEME=https
              - PUSHER_APP_CLUSTER=mt1
              - VITE_APP_NAME="${APP_NAME}"
              - VITE_PUSHER_APP_KEY="${PUSHER_APP_KEY}"
              - VITE_PUSHER_HOST="${PUSHER_HOST}"
              - VITE_PUSHER_PORT="${PUSHER_PORT}"
              - VITE_PUSHER_SCHEME="${PUSHER_SCHEME}"
              - VITE_PUSHER_APP_CLUSTER="${PUSHER_APP_CLUSTER}"
        networks:
            - laravel-network
        volumes:
            - laravel-app:/var/www/html
        restart: always

    nginx:
        build:
            context: .
            dockerfile: Dockerfile.nginx
        volumes:
            - laravel-app:/var/www/html
        ports:
            - "16005:80"
        networks:
            - laravel-network

    db:
        image: mariadb
        expose:
            - 3306
        networks:
            - laravel-network
        environment:
            MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: DATABASE_PASSWORD
            MYSQL_USER: root
            MYSQL_PASSWORD: DATABASE_PASSWORD
        volumes:
            - laravel-db:/var/lib/mysql
        restart: always

    phpmyadmin:
        image: phpmyadmin
        ports:
            - "16006:80"
        environment:
            - PMA_HOST=db
            - PMA_PORT=3306
            - UPLOAD_LIMIT=50000000
        networks:
            - laravel-network
        restart: always
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Change the configuration to your needs and run the command below to start your containers:

docker compose up -d
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Now you can access your Laravel app from localhost:16005 and your PhpMyAdmin from localhost:16006.

I hope this article was helpful. Please let me know of any mistakes or improvements.

BTW! Check out my free Node.js Essentials E-book here:

adnanbabakan

NodeJS Essentials | Free E-Book

Adnan Babakan (he/him) ・ Sep 11 '20

#node #javascript #books

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or suggestions.

Top comments (5)

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mprajescu profile image
Mihai •

This is a great article. Are you planning on expanding this article and build more with Redis, and setup Redis Queues and Laravel Horizon?

How do you rebuild the image with updated code without affecting currently deployed data and do migrations?

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adnanbabakan profile image
Adnan Babakan (he/him) •

Yeah sure. I am planning on extending the docker set up for a full Laravel experience!

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mprajescu profile image
Mihai •

I've just seen FrankenPHP that works in Beta with Octane. Maybe you want to look into that and setting up Laravel 11 which is around the corner, with FrankenPHP and Octane and docker as a single image that can be setup with multiple containers including redis and mysql for a full setup experience.
It would be great to see how updates and migrations are being pushed when you roll out an update to the docker images.

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sontus profile image
Sontus Chandra Anik •

Thanks for this great article. I face a problem when run
docker build -t container_name
show this error

ERROR: "docker buildx build" requires exactly 1 argument.
See 'docker buildx build --help'.

Usage:  docker buildx build [OPTIONS] PATH | URL | -

Start a build
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how can solve it. please help me.

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adnanbabakan profile image
Adnan Babakan (he/him) • • Edited

Hi!
The command you are entering seems wrong.
The docker build requires an address to build. So make sure to include a . (dot) at the end to build the current directory:

docker build -t image_name .
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Let me know if this didn't solve your problem.

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