docker

Plug and play Docker environment for Laravel & Symfony development

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Overview

This repository provides a small, developer-focused Docker environment tailored for Laravel and Symfony applications. It includes a PHP-FPM container (custom PHP image), Nginx, MySQL (5.7), phpMyAdmin, MailHog, and Redis. The stack is designed to be opinionated but lightweight: PHP runs in a dedicated container, your application code is bind-mounted from ./backend, and Nginx proxies requests to PHP-FPM.

Use this repository as a starting point for local development, experimentation, or CI-friendly workflows.

Features

• PHP 8.4 FPM (Alpine-based) with common extensions preinstalled (gd, pdo_mysql, intl, mbstring, opcache, redis via PECL)
• Nginx (1.19.2-alpine) as the HTTP reverse-proxy
• MySQL 5.7 with a persisted volume
• phpMyAdmin for quick DB access
• MailHog for catching outgoing mail during development
• Redis (7-alpine)
• Customizable PHP configuration: docker/php/php.ini and docker/php/www.conf
• Entrypoint script that installs Composer deps and clears Symfony cache when appropriate

Quickstart (tested with Docker 24.x & Docker Compose v2)

Prerequisites:

• Docker (recommend latest stable; tested with Docker 24.x)
• Docker Compose (v2 or docker compose built into Docker)

Bringing the stack up:

# Build images and start containers in the background
docker compose up -d --build

# View logs
docker compose logs -f

Common tasks (run these from the repo root):

# Install Composer dependencies inside the php container
docker compose exec php composer install --no-interaction

# For Laravel: run artisan migrations
docker compose exec php php artisan migrate --force

# For Symfony: run doctrine migrations (if using migrations)
docker compose exec php php bin/console doctrine:migrations:migrate --no-interaction

# Run tests inside container (example)
docker compose exec php ./vendor/bin/phpunit

If you change PHP extensions or the PHP Dockerfile, rebuild the image:

docker compose build php

Services & Access

The docker-compose configuration maps the container ports to the host as follows (defaults):

• App (Nginx): http://localhost:80
• phpMyAdmin: http://localhost:81 (connect to host mysql, root password root)
• MailHog UI: http://localhost:85
• MySQL: host localhost:3306 (or use mysql:3306 within containers)
• Redis: host localhost:6379 (or redis:6379 within containers)

Notes:

• Your application code is mounted at ./backend -> /var/www/backend inside the php and nginx containers. The Nginx root is configured to /var/www/backend/public (Laravel) or /var/www/backend/public (Symfony Flex default).
• The php container exposes FPM on port 9000 internally and Nginx forwards to php:9000.

PHP configuration & custom files

• docker/php/Dockerfile: custom PHP build (Alpine) with common extensions and Composer installed globally.
• docker/php/php.ini: custom PHP settings loaded into the container.
• docker/php/www.conf: custom PHP-FPM pool configuration used by the container.
• entrypoint.sh: runs on container start to install Composer deps (if composer.json exists), clear Symfony cache (if bin/console exists), and start PHP-FPM.

If you need to tweak php.ini or www.conf, edit the files in docker/php/ and rebuild the php image:

docker compose build php

Environment variables (example)

Inside your application .env (examples for Laravel):

DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=mysql
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=db_backend
DB_USERNAME=db_user
DB_PASSWORD=db_password

MAIL_MAILER=smtp
MAIL_HOST=mail
MAIL_PORT=1025
MAIL_USERNAME=null
MAIL_PASSWORD=null
MAIL_ENCRYPTION=null

REDIS_HOST=redis
REDIS_PORT=6379

For Symfony (example parameters):

DATABASE_URL=mysql://db_user:db_password@mysql:3306/db_backend
MAILER_DSN=smtp://mail:1025

Notes: When working from your host (outside containers) you can connect to MySQL at localhost:3306 and phpMyAdmin at http://localhost:81.

Volumes & persisted data

• mysql_data holds MySQL data and is declared in docker-compose.yml.
• Application files are bind-mounted from ./backend so code changes are immediate.
• There's a mercure_data volume declared but no mercure service is present by default; see "Mercure / Caddy" below.

Mercure / Caddy

This repo includes a sample docker/mercure/Caddyfile that demonstrates a Caddy reverse-proxy with permissive CORS headers for a Mercure hub running on localhost:86. The docker-compose.yml does not currently include a Mercure service by default — if you need Mercure, add an appropriate service and mount/use the Caddyfile provided.

Common gotchas & troubleshooting

• 502 Bad Gateway from Nginx: Usually means PHP-FPM not reachable. Check docker compose logs php and docker compose ps. Ensure the php container is healthy and listening on 9000.

• File permissions / storage: If your framework cannot write to storage/var directories, ensure the container user has ownership. The Dockerfile sets ownership to www-data:www-data for /var/www/backend. You can fix host permissions with:

sudo chown -R $UID:$GID backend

• Rebuild after Dockerfile changes: docker compose build php then docker compose up -d.

• Composer memory issues: Run composer inside the php container rather than on the host to use the container's PHP config: docker compose exec php composer install.

• DB connection refused: From the host use localhost:3306. From containers use mysql:3306 as DB host.

• phpMyAdmin login: use host mysql (or localhost if you configure it that way), root password root (from compose env).

How to add or change services

• Nginx: edit docker/nginx/default.conf and reload the container (or restart): docker compose restart nginx.
• PHP: edit docker/php/Dockerfile, docker/php/php.ini, or docker/php/www.conf, then rebuild: docker compose build php.
• MySQL: to persist different DB data, change/create a new named volume and update docker-compose.yml.

If you add services that applications depend on, update your app .env to point to the service name (Docker Compose DNS): e.g., DB_HOST=mysql, REDIS_HOST=redis.

Development tips

• Use docker compose exec php sh or docker compose exec php bash to open a shell inside the PHP container (Alpine uses sh by default).
• Use docker compose logs -f <service> to tail logs during development.
• When running front-end tooling (npm/yarn), either run it on the host or add a node service in the Compose stack.

Suggested next steps / improvements

A few small improvements you might consider:

• Add a Makefile or composer scripts to simplify common commands (up, down, rebuild, shell, etc.).
• Add healthchecks to services in docker-compose.yml to improve startup ordering and reliability.
• Provide an .env.example at the repo root with the environment variables shown above.
• Add a CI workflow that builds the php image and runs your test suite.
• Consider migrating to Docker Compose v2+ file format and using Compose profiles if you need optional services.
• Secure secrets using Docker secrets or environment variable management for non-dev use.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Please open issues or PRs for fixes or improvements. Keep changes small and focused. If adding services, update this README and add examples for .env values.

License

This repository does not include a license file. If you want to open source it, consider adding an MIT LICENSE.