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The beauty of Docker for local Laravel development

Andrew Schmelyun on May 06, 2019

tl;dr Want to take the fast track and skip the detailed tutorial below? Install Docker for your OS, clone this repo, add your Laravel ap...

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Skyeun • Jun 15 '19 • Edited

Hi! I used your work as an inspiration for my Symfony 4 container, and it work perfectly. But php container (I think it's him) create a html folder inside of my /var/www folder, and I'm unable to understand why. Any clues?

Here is the link to my repo: github.com/guillotjulien/symfony4-...

Thanks :)

EDIT:

Just add working_dir: /var/www to php service :)

Sushil Shrestha • Mar 14 '21

Hi! Thank you for great blog tutorials. It really helped me to get started. I have also watched you youtube video which took me here.

I am able to deploy container for laravel succesfully and now I want to install image GD library for PHP. I simply tried adding RUN docker-php-ext-install gd. But it didnot worked. Also, I want to upload large images 5 MB for which I need to make changes to NGINX config. I have tried modifying nginx.dockerfile but its now working. Can you please help me through it?

tzalejo • Jul 5 '21

could you solve it?

I'M DEVLIM ⛱️ • Sep 21 '19

Files generate in /src folder when execute artisan command inside php container is own by root,
example, running following command

docker-compose exec php php /var/www/artisan make:controller ExampleController

will generate ExampleController.php on host machine and file is own by root.

Any idea how to avoid this?

Roberto Cifuentes • Oct 31 '21

I'm sorry if this is too late, but hopefully will help others, here's my workaround to solve the file owner issue, first you have to find-out whats your uid (normaly 1000):

in the terminal type id. The result will be something like:

$ id
uid=1000(roberto) gid=1000(roberto) grou [...]

execute the php service as your uid:gid in your docker-compose.yml

services:
  php:
    [...]
    user: '1000:1000'
    [...]

Gregory • Jun 13 '19

Also, you even don not need Dockerfile for php container!
If you run:

docker run --rm php:7.2-fpm-alpine php -m | grep -i pdo

you can see that php modules already exists:

PDO
pdo_sqlite

Gregory • Jun 15 '19

my bad, pdo_mysql do not exists on this image, unfortunately you should write Dockerfile if you want database access :)

Lalustine • Dec 30 '19 • Edited

Thank you for your good tutorial.Can you help me in this issue? I tried everything but no use. I am running on window 10 but linux containers.

Illuminate\Database\QueryException : SQLSTATE[HY000] [2002] Connection refused (SQL: select * from information_schema.tables where table_schema = default and table_name = migrations)

thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i...

lideo • Jun 23 '20 • Edited

I don't know if you were able to solve this or not, but this is what worked for me:

In your .env file change this

DB_HOST=localhost

for this

DB_HOST=mysql

I guess it's because you need to specify the name of the container running the database server and in docker-compose.yml the name for the mysql service is container_name: mysql.

Edit: I see now that the article clearly states that the value for DB_HOST needs to be mysql. For some reason my brain totally skipped that part...

Andrew Schmelyun • Dec 30 '19

In your .env file for your Laravel application, what are your values for the database credentials?

Tim Koop • Jan 25 '21

I think I've got this set up, but it's slow on my Windows machine. When using WSL 2, Microsoft recommends you "store your files in the WSL file system", whatever that means, for performance reasons. I've played around with the volumes in docker-compose.yml, but I can't get it working. How would I do this? Thanks!
docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/w...

Andrew Schmelyun • Jan 26 '21

Hey Tim!

So essentially when it says "Store your files in the WSL file system" it means in the Linux partition that Windows creates when using WSL.

If you open up a Windows Terminal session in Bash, by default it should put you in a directory called like /mnt/c/Windows. Run cd ~ to get to the home directory in the WSL file system, and then from there you can use any directory under that one to create your Docker-ized application and it will run way faster.

For instance, I have mine at ~/Sites/example.com. Let me know if that helps!

Tim Koop • Jan 26 '21 • Edited

So in your docker-compose.yml file, what do your volumes look like? I changed mine from
volumes:
- .src:/var/www/html
to
volumes:
- ~/site:/var/www/html
And now I get a 404 error, even thought there is an index.html file there.

Tim Koop • Feb 4 '21

To answer my own question, the answer is to run docker-compose inside wsl, not from the Windows prompt.

amax-123 • Feb 1 '21

Dont know what i'm doing wrong but i typed in the files by hand and built the docker. On running the containers mysql and php run fine but nginx exits with the following log: Any ideas?

/docker-entrypoint.sh: /docker-entrypoint.d/ is not empty, will attempt to perform configuration
/docker-entrypoint.sh: Looking for shell scripts in /docker-entrypoint.d/
/docker-entrypoint.sh: Launching /docker-entrypoint.d/10-listen-on-ipv6-by-default.sh
10-listen-on-ipv6-by-default.sh: Getting the checksum of /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf
10-listen-on-ipv6-by-default.sh: info: /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf differs from the packaged version
/docker-entrypoint.sh: Launching /docker-entrypoint.d/20-envsubst-on-templates.sh
/docker-entrypoint.sh: Configuration complete; ready for start up
2021/02/01 11:26:42 [emerg] 1#1: invalid variable name in /etc/nginx/nginx.conf:32
nginx: [emerg] invalid variable name in /etc/nginx/nginx.conf:32

Mohammad-GHorbani • Sep 19 '19

Please add composer to php container.

Zoran Panev • Jan 15 '20

Adding composer container will be better solution :)

Yan Naing (ရန်နိင်) • May 11 '20

Hi Andrew,
Appreciate your tutorial. It is very good and clear to understand. I have tried both of your tutorial form youtube. They are ok.

But I am trying to install all php extensions recommended by laravel. BCMath, Ctype, Fileinfo, JSON, Mbstring, OpenSSL, PDO, Tokenizer, XML. Some of them can be install easily. But some aren't. I have faced various errors. Would you mind showing how to install them.

Chad Gregory • Dec 5 '20 • Edited

OK i cloned your repo installed a laravel app and ran the docker-compose command from the github repo. When I try to run a composer command using the container I run into this error

dcr composer install
Creating training_composer_run ... done
Error response from daemon: unable to find user laravel: no matching entries in passwd file

Chad Gregory • Dec 5 '20

had to build all the containers

Ossycodes • Feb 24 '20

Hy Andrew, I have issues running this on windows please help
Creating mysql ... done
Creating php ... error

ERROR: for php Cannot create container for service php: b'Drive sharing failed for an unknown reason'

ERROR: for php Cannot create container for service php: b'Drive sharing failed for an unknown reason'
Encountered errors while bringing up the project.

Marcelo Monnerat Castello • Mar 1 '20 • Edited

You have to go on Settings and SHARE the driver you are trying to set up your project in it...

Gregory • Jun 13 '19

Thanks for good docker-compose.yml example!

But I'm curious about SERVICE_TAGS: dev and SERVICE_NAME: mysql env variables for mysql container, for what they are?

Shane Parsons • Oct 3 '19

Did you ever figure this out? I've noticed it outside of this tutorial as well, and am also curious.

Gerardo Belot • Dec 4 '19 • Edited

nice one, I like the nginx implementation so easy, but exactly how and when do I use "composer install"? I can't work without installing the packages!!

isagarjadhav • Jul 29 '21

Adding composer to Dockerfile to make it container specific.

Install Composer

RUN curl -sS getcomposer.org/installer | php -- --install-dir=/usr/local/bin --filename=composer

You should have composer in php container so that you can run composer commands via docker cli and install specific laravel version. Laravel 8 requires composer 2.

David Fernando Flores Lujan • May 14 '20

Hello friends, I follow all the tips step by step but I had the next problem, please can you help me:

$ docker-compose build
The Compose file '.\docker-compose.yml' is invalid because:
services.nginx.networks contains an invalid type, it should be an array, or an object

Andrew Schmelyun • May 14 '20

Hey David!

Check your spacing on that file. It should be indented appropriately, and possibly even have to use spaces instead of tabs. If you need to, you can compare it against the current docker-compose.yml file in the repository for that tutorial: github.com/aschmelyun/docker-compo...

Lusekero • Aug 15 '20

I am new to docker and laravel but I like the clarity and simplicity of this project structure. Is there any chance you can show how to do this with apache server instead of nginx? (Laravel + Docker + Apache + MySQL) in this project structure?

Xavoski • Jun 10 '20

Hi,
Thanks for your post and git repo. Great work.
I am facing a chalenge to run npm commands in npm container.
I started an project with Laravel and Vue, but i can't run npm commands to compile Vue components.
I installed npm on my machine, runned "npm run watch" and it works great, but how can i run this command using the npm container?
After docker-compose up -d, all containers are done well, but only three remain running "nginx, mysql and php", that is ok, but how can i run and exec comands in npm?
Sory my verbosity and of course my english.

Xavoski • Jun 10 '20

Well, i start with my apologies.
I ran npm command using:
$ docker-compose run --rm npm run watch
But i will use this to ask if this (keep run watch open in terminal) is the best way to recompile Vue components?

Gayathri • Jul 4 '19

Hi Andrew,
Thanks for sharing this method. This is probably a concise guide on local development environment set up with Docker for running our Laravel applications. I also would like to suggest a post that will be helpful for readers on hiring Laravel developers: Read more.

Stoyan Georgiev • Aug 30 '19

Hi, Andrew!
From the positivity of the other comments, I understand that your guide works fine for others.
Yet I am getting this permission issue when I visit my localhost:

The stream or file "/var/www/storage/logs/laravel-2019-08-30.log" could not be opened: failed to open stream: Permission denied

thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i...

I'm still learning and this got me confused.
Can you tell me what user:group and privileges to give to my project folder?

François • Nov 4 '19 • Edited

Hello Stoyan,

Have a look at Laravel permissions related to /storage directory (which contains logs) and /bootstrap/cache directory.
You will find plenty of documentation/stack overflows issues about it. :)

Edit :
laravel.com/docs/6.x/installation#...

Stiven Castillo • Oct 2 '19

Hi, it don't work for me

nginx | 2019/10/02 22:02:42 [emerg] 1#1: invalid log level "access_log" in /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf:6
nginx | nginx: [emerg] invalid log level "access_log" in /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf:6

Devvara Rishivian • May 7 '19

Hi Andrew, nice articles.
But I have question, how about deploy to live server?

Islam Ibakaev • Oct 13 '19

Hi, Andrew! I have this error in browser

This page isn’t working
localhost is currently unable to handle this request.
HTTP ERROR 500

Beautiful article, btw!

Sanjay Ojha • May 7 '19

Thank you for this article. I was thinking of changing my local development environment which is WAMP server installed on my Windows machine.

Stef Pletinck • Sep 16 '19

You can also use Laravel Homestead, which I've found to be incredibly useful

marcellusGraceman • Nov 24 '21

is it possible to add phpmyadmin..that way whenever you are running a container or a laravel project..you can use phpmyadmin to see data in database? if so, how to do it?

Thank you for your assistance.
Appreciate you

marcellusGraceman • Nov 24 '21

I just saw on your YouTube Channel that you did a video on it..thank you

Galang YP • Oct 15 '19

Any tutorial about rest api laravel and mongodb using jwt? I just searching for that lol

baicai • Aug 30 '19

I have similar php develop env with docker,
My demo is here demo-docker-compose

Lalustine • Dec 30 '19

Hello, thank you for the great tutorial. Can you help me with migration? i am getting error.

Ossycodes • Feb 24 '20

same here, how did you fix this?

DeUliZeaLand • Nov 16 '22

Hi, Thank you for the tutorial. It was super clear and easy to follow.

Keep make tutorial like this, Appreciate it a lot.

Yano • Sep 5 '19

You saved my day Andrew! Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

iamndeleva • Oct 22 '19

How do u link laravel files when using phpstorm

Andrew Schmelyun • Oct 22 '19

That's the best part about using this method, you don't have to "link" any files. Just edit them normally like you would any files on your computer, and any changes you make will be available inside the Docker container immediately.

Luis Alberto Sánchez • Nov 30 '19

Thank you for sharing, it works perfect for my project!

Moonsn • May 9 '19

The MySQL data will be delete, maybe need set volume data as well as Nginx.

Andrew Schmelyun • May 9 '19

You're right, good suggestion! There's a few good methods I've come across in this thread: stackoverflow.com/questions/391751...

Cody Moorhouse • Aug 15 '20

Just wanted to say thanks Andrew for this very detailed an thorough walk through, was amazing!

Ahkar02468 • Jan 12 '21

Hey Andrew, there are no folders with the name of container I created what do I miss. But php,mysql and ngnix are up and running with no error.

Binod Manandhar • Aug 24 '21

When I run docker-compose exec php php /var/www/artisan migrate
I get error as
Could not open input file: /var/www/artisan

azmeer • Dec 29 '22

Fantastic tutorial. It is very clear and thank you. I noticed Laravel Sail has made our life easier with Docker. Perhaps you could update this document (a new thread?) with Sail.