Lightweight PHP-FPM & Nginx Docker Image for WordPress

This is maintained repository. We use this project in production and recommend this for your projects too. This container doesn't have mysql or email, you need to provide them from elsewhere. This can be other container or your host machine.

I tried to include all build, test and project tools in docker-alpine-wordpress image. I think that more modular design is better for docker and security as well.

This project tries to be as minimal as possible and doesn't include anything that we don't absolutely need in the runtime.

Aren't you only supposed to run one process per container?

We think that docker container should be small set of processes which provide one service rather than one clumsy process. This container uses s6-overlay in order to run php-fpm and nginx together.

Container layout

Mount your wordpress project into:

/var/www/project

Your project should define web root in:

/var/www/project/web

This is the place where nginx will serve requests. This is compatible with bedrock layout.

Override project path

You can use OVERRIDE_PROJECT_ROOT variable to change project path with symlink.

For example in Drone CI all mounts are done into /drone/src folder and we use OVERRIDE_PROJECT_ROOT=/drone/src/project in our testing.

Container creates a symlink from /var/www/project into $OVERRIDE_PROJECT_ROOT which allows us to use custom path.

User permissions

You can use WP_GID and WP_UID env to change web user and group.

If these are not set container will look for owner:group from files mounted in /var/www/project/web/.

If these files are owned by root user or root group the container will automatically use 100:101 as permissions instead. This is so that we won't never run nginx and php-fpm as root.

Nginx includes

You can have custom nginx includes in your project mount /var/www/project/nginx.

Include into http {} block: /var/www/project/nginx/http/*.conf

Include into server {} block: /var/www/project/nginx/server/*.conf

Include into @index {} block: /var/www/project/nginx/index/*.conf

See more in our wp-project template.

Cron jobs

You can place cron file in /var/www/project/tasks.cron. This is symlinked to crond and run as user wordpress.

For example:

# do daily/weekly/monthly maintenance
*       *       *       *       *       echo "test log from: $(whoami)..." >> /tmp/test.log

Environment Variables

Timezone

This sets timezone for the environment and php. See candidates here: http://php.net/manual/en/timezones.php

TZ     # Default: 'Europe/Helsinki'

Development/Production

WP_ENV # Default: '' Options: development,testing,production,pretty-much-anything-you-want

Database variables (mysql/mariadb)

DB_NAME     # Default: ''
DB_PASSWORD # Default: ''
DB_USER     # Default: ''
DB_HOST     # Default: ''
DB_PORT     # Default: ''

Remember to set DB_NAME, DB_PASSWORD and DB_USER and use these variables in your wp-config.php. These are automatically added as envs in php context.

Email variables

SMTP_HOST

This variable changes the host where container tries to send mail from. By default this is docker host 172.17.0.1.

SMTP_PORT

This variable changes the port where container tries to connect in order to send mail. By default this is 25.

SMTP_TLS

If this is provided use username in authenticating to mail server. Default: null

SMTP_USER

If this is provided use password in authenticating to mail server. Default: null

SMTP_PASSWORD

If this is on mail will use username/password authentication in connections to smtp server. This will automatically activate if you use SMTP_USER and SMTP_PASSWORD. Default: off

SMTP_AUTH

See more about these variables in msmtp docs.

PHP and Nginx Variables

You can change following env to change php configs:

# Variables and default values
PHP_MEMORY_LIMIT=128M
NGINX_MAX_BODY_SIZE=64M
NGINX_FASTCGI_TIMEOUT=30

# These defaulta are only for PHP 7.3
# Default fastcgi cache directory
NGINX_CACHE_DIRECTORY=/dev/cache

# Default operations when fastcgi stale cache is used
NGINX_CACHE_USE_STALE="error timeout invalid_header updating http_500 http_503 http_403 http_404 http_429"


NGINX_REDIS_CACHE_TTL_DEFAULT="200 301 302 1m"

# Default headers for fastcgi stale- and error cache
NGINX_CACHE_CONTROL='"max-age=60, stale-while-revalidate=300, stale-if-error=21600"'

# list of parameters to be included in cached requests separated by comma (default empty)
CACHE_QUERYVARS=

# Cache mode blacklist or whitelist, default whitelist (possible values: blacklist, whitelist)
CACHE_MODE=

What's inside container:

For running WordPress

• php7.xx
• php-fpm7
• nginx
• wp-cli

For sending emails with smtp server

• msmtp