Dockerize a WordPress application for development

WordPress is a free and open-source content management system written in PHP and paired with a MySQL or MariaDB database. Features include a plugin architecture and a template system, referred to within WordPress as Theme

Wikipedia

Dockerizing a WordPress application might be helpful for testing or developing new themes, and plugins. In this article we will make the complete ready to use setup.

Prerequisite

• Docker
• Docker-compose

Setup development environment

1 — Download WordPress Zip file from the official website here

2 — Unzip the WordPress file.

3 — Now let’s see what containers we need to build the environment :

• Ubuntu with Apache server installed
• MySQL server
• PhpMyAdmin

4 — Here is our project structure :

-- wordpress/
---- /Dockerfile
---- /config/wdpress.conf
-- docker-compose.yml
-- .env

5 — Let’s make our Dockerfile

FROM ubuntu:18.04
# Install.
RUN \
  sed -i 's/# \(.*multiverse$\)/\1/g' /etc/apt/sources.list && \
  apt-get update && \
  apt-get -y upgrade && \
  apt-get install -y build-essential && \
  apt-get install -y software-properties-common && \
  apt-get install -y byobu curl git htop man unzip vim wget && \
  rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
ARG DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
RUN apt-get update
RUN apt-get upgrade
RUN apt-get install -y apache2 libapache2-mod-php
RUN apt install -y php unzip
RUN apt-get install -y php-cli php-common php-mbstring php-gd php-intl php-xml php-mysql php-zip php-curl php-xmlrpc
COPY . /var/www/html:rw
COPY ./config/wdpress.conf /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf
RUN a2enmod rewrite
# Define working directory.
WORKDIR /var/www/html
# Define default command.
EXPOSE 80
CMD apachectl -D FOREGROUND

6 — Setup apache configuration file /config/wdpress.conf

<VirtualHost *:80>
	ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
	DocumentRoot /var/www/html
	ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
	CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
    <Directory /var/www/html >
        AllowOverride All
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

7 — Define our services in Docker-compose.yml

version: '2'
services:
 
  mysql:
    image: mysql:5.7
    env_file:
      - .env
    volumes:
      - ./.docker/data/mysql/:/var/lib/mysql
      - ./.docker/logs/mysql/:/var/log/mysql
    ports:
      - "3306:3306"
    container_name: wp_mysql
  
  phpmyadmin:
    image: phpmyadmin/phpmyadmin
    ports:
      -  8080:80
    env_file:
      - .env
    environment:
      PMA_HOST: mysql
      VIRTUAL_HOST: phpmyadmin.wp.local  
    container_name: wp_phpmyadmin

  app_dev:
    container_name: wp_app
    build: ./wordpress/
    environment:
      - VIRTUAL_HOST=app.wp.local
    volumes : 
      - ./wordpress:/var/www/html:rw
    restart: always
    ports:
      - 80:80
    links:
      - "mysql:wp_mysql"

8 — Setup the environment variable for the database connection

MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=Abcdef123!
MYSQL_PASSWORD=Abcdef123!
MYSQL_DATABASE=wordpress_db
USER_ID=1000

Nice all is set, it’s time to build the project

docker-compose up --build

Once the build is done successfully and all containers are up visit :

• http://localhost — — — — — — -> WordPress application
• http://localhost:8080 — — -> PhpMyAdmin

Now follow the steps and remember to use the same setup for username/database name/password

Remember to create the folder “uploads” in the WordPress folder is it does not exist to save your assets, meanwhile you may need to give permissions to Apache to can create/modify

To do so connect to the container

docker exec -ti wp_app bash
# create the folder
mkdir uploads
# Give it permission
chown www-data:www-data -R uploads

And that’s all :) happy coding.

Source code here