Real world practice on Docker in Laravel web app

I heard about Docker few years ago, but wasn’t know about best practice how to use that.
I’ve tried Laradock, it’s way too many stuff in the config, should I use 1 docker for multiple
projects? Or better single project?

---

Create docker-compose.yml in root

Here’s the basic docker-compose file to run php web app

.
├── docker-compose.yml
└── src (laravel project)

version: '3'

services:
  php-fpm:
    image: php:8.0-fpm
    container_name: jslim-php-fpm
    restart: unless-stopped
    tty: true
    working_dir: /var/www/app
    depends_on:
      - redis
    volumes:
      - ../src:/var/www/app
    networks:
      - jslim-network

  nginx:
    image: nginx:alpine
    container_name: jslim-nginx
    restart: unless-stopped
    tty: true
    depends_on:
      - php-fpm
    ports:
      - 8080:80
    volumes:
      - ../src:/var/www/app
    networks:
      - jslim-network

  redis:
    image: redis:6-alpine
    container_name: jslim-redis
    networks:
      - jslim-network


#Docker Networks
networks:
  jslim-network:
    driver: bridge

If you’re in local development, can add in mysql container.

php-fpm:
  ...
  depends_on:
    - mysql

...

mysql:
  image: mysql:8.0
  container_name: jslim-mysql
  ports:
    - 3306:3306
  environment:
    MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: '${DB_PASSWORD}'
    MYSQL_DATABASE: '${DB_DATABASE}'
    MYSQL_USER: '${DB_USERNAME}'
    MYSQL_PASSWORD: '${DB_PASSWORD}'
    MYSQL_ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD: 'yes'
  volumes:
    - ./data/mysql-data:/var/lib/mysql
  networks:
    - jslim-network
  healthcheck:
    test: ["CMD", "mysqladmin", "ping"]

Run it
(. src/.env is read .env file’s as env variables)

$ . src/.env && docker-compose up -d

Add extra php packages

In order to run Laravel web app, there are some php extensions required.
Thus, we need to create a Dockerfile to customize from the base image (php:8.0-fpm)

.
├── docker
│   └── php
│       └── Dockerfile
├── docker-compose.yml
└── src (laravel project)

Update Dockerfile

FROM php:8.0-fpm

ARG DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive

# Install dependencies
RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y \
    procps \
    libonig-dev \
    libzip-dev \
    libicu-dev \
    build-essential \
    libpng-dev \
    libjpeg62-turbo-dev \
    libfreetype6-dev \
    locales \
    zip \
    jpegoptim optipng pngquant gifsicle \
    vim \
    unzip \
    git \
    curl

# install npm
RUN curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_15.x | bash -
RUN apt-get install -y nodejs
RUN curl -L https://npmjs.org/install.sh | sh

# Clear cache
RUN apt-get clean && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

# Install extensions
RUN docker-php-ext-install pdo_mysql mbstring zip exif pcntl intl
RUN docker-php-ext-configure gd --with-freetype --with-jpeg
RUN docker-php-ext-install gd
RUN pecl install redis && docker-php-ext-enable redis

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

EXPOSE 9000
CMD ["php-fpm"]

And update docker-compose.yml

add

services:
  php-fpm:
    build:
      context: ./docker/php
      dockerfile: Dockerfile

remove

image: php:8.0-fpm

Remember to update .env, to point the DB & redis host to docker container

DB_HOST=mysql
REDIS_HOST=redis

Now run docker-compose up -d should be able to visit 127.0.0.1:8080

---

Create customized base image

Can build the image to Docker Hub, it’s free for public image

Refer to my Github repo
for how to create base image. It’s based on php:8.0-fpm image

Basically the idea is, if we have 2nd or 3rd Laravel project, can just use the
base image, and duplicate the required extensions for all projects.
It also take quite a few minutes to install everything when we run docker-compose up.
Base image is like a template, everything is ready, can use in all Laravel projects.
Just extends the pre-built custom base image (i.e. jslim/php8-laravel-base in my example here)

Update Dockerfile, change

FROM php:8.0-fpm

to

FROM jslim/php8-laravel-base:latest

and remove those apt install commands

---

In production

In production we usually don’t use database in same instance with web app,
we can create another docker-compose-production.yml

Remove mysql, and perhaps need to have custom php.ini config,
and may be have custom nginx config, SSL cert, etc

version: '3'

services:
  php-fpm:
    build:
      context: ./docker/php
      dockerfile: Dockerfile
    container_name: jslim-php-fpm
    restart: unless-stopped
    tty: true
    working_dir: /var/www/app
    depends_on:
      - redis
    volumes:
      - ../src:/var/www/app
      - ./docker/php/local.ini:/usr/local/etc/php/conf.d/local.ini
    networks:
      - jslim-network

  nginx:
    image: nginx:alpine
    container_name: jslim-nginx
    restart: unless-stopped
    tty: true
    depends_on:
      - php-fpm
    ports:
      - 80:80
      - 443:443
    volumes:
      - ../src:/var/www/app
      - ./docker/nginx/conf.d/nginx.conf:/etc/nginx/conf.d/app.conf
      - ./docker/nginx/ssl-snippets.conf:/etc/nginx/snippets/ssl.conf
      - ./docker/nginx/ssl/nginx.crt:/etc/ssl/certs/nginx.crt
      - ./docker/nginx/ssl/nginx.key:/etc/ssl/private/nginx.key
    networks:
      - jslim-network

  redis:
    image: redis:6-alpine
    container_name: jslim-redis
    networks:
      - jslim-network

#Docker Networks
networks:
  jslim-network:
    driver: bridge

The file structure

├── docker
│   ├── nginx
│   │   ├── conf.d
│   │   │   └── nginx.conf
│   │   ├── ssl
│   │   │   ├── nginx.crt
│   │   │   └── nginx.key
│   │   └── ssl-snippets.conf
│   └── php
│       ├── Dockerfile
│       └── local.ini
├── docker-compose.yml
├── docker-compose-production.yml
└── src (laravel project)

To run in production

$ docker-compose -f docker-compose-production.yml up -d