VSCode Remote Docker Container - LAMP Stack

Introduction

This platform is built using a .devcontainer.json which uses a docker-compose.yml file that consists of the following software:

• Linux Debian 10.2
• PHP 7.4
• Apache 2.4
• MySQL 8.0
• PhpMyAdmin 4.9
• Composer 1.9

Prerequisites

This tutorial assumes you are running Ubuntu 18.04 LTS x86_64. To start developing remote containers, you need to install Docker locally following the next steps:

Set up the Docker repository

Update the apt package index.

$ sudo apt-get update

Install packages to allow apt to use a repository over HTTPS:

$ sudo apt-get install \
    apt-transport-https \
    ca-certificates \
    curl \
    gnupg-agent \
    software-properties-common

Add Docker’s official GPG key:

$ curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo apt-key add -

Verify that you now have the key with the fingerprint 9DC8 5822 9FC7 DD38 854A E2D8 8D81 803C 0EBF CD88, by searching for the last 8 characters of the fingerprint.

$ sudo apt-key fingerprint 0EBFCD88
    
pub   rsa4096 2017-02-22 [SCEA]
      9DC8 5822 9FC7 DD38 854A  E2D8 8D81 803C 0EBF CD88
uid           [ unknown] Docker Release (CE deb) <docker@docker.com>
sub   rsa4096 2017-02-22 [S]

Use the following command to set up the stable repository.

$ sudo add-apt-repository \
   "deb [arch=amd64] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu \
   $(lsb_release -cs) \
   stable"

Install Docker Engine - Community 19.03

Update the apt package index.

$ sudo apt-get update

Install the latest version of Docker Engine - Community and containerd, or go to the next step to install a specific version:

$ sudo apt-get install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io

Test the installation

$ docker --version
Docker version 19.03.5, build 633a0ea838

Manage Docker as a non-root user

Add your user to the docker group created during installation.

$ sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

Activate the changes to groups.

$ newgrp docker

Verify that you can run docker commands without sudo.

$ docker run hello-world

To learn more about how to install Docker, go to https://docs.docker.com/install/linux/docker-ce/ubuntu/ and https://docs.docker.com/install/linux/linux-postinstall/

Install Docker Compose 1.25

Run this command to download the current stable release of Docker Compose:

$ sudo curl -L "https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/download/1.25.0/docker-compose-$(uname -s)-$(uname -m)" -o /usr/local/bin/docker-compose

Apply executable permissions to the binary:

$ sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/docker-compose

Test the installation.

$ docker-compose --version
docker-compose version 1.25.0, build 1110ad01

To learn more about how to install Docker Compose, go to https://docs.docker.com/compose/install/

Install and setup VSCode

Download the .deb version of VSCode from https://code.visualstudio.com/, install it, open it and add the following extensions:

• ms-azuretools.vscode-docker
• ms-vscode-remote.remote-containers

After installing the extensions, type Ctrl + Shift + p, run the command Preferences: Open Settings (JSON) and use the following settings:

{
  "editor.formatOnSave": true,
  "editor.lineHeight": 25,
  "editor.minimap.enabled": false,
  "editor.tabSize": 2,
  "explorer.autoReveal": false,
  "explorer.openEditors.visible": 0,
  "files.autoSave": "onFocusChange",
  "files.insertFinalNewline": true,
  "files.trimFinalNewlines": true,
  "files.trimTrailingWhitespace": true,
  "window.menuBarVisibility": "toggle",
  "window.title": "${rootName}",
  "window.zoomLevel": 0.7,
  "workbench.editor.enablePreview": false,
  "zenMode.hideTabs": false
}

After saving the changes, close Visual Studio Code.

Clone repository

Open a terminal and run the following commands:

$ mkdir Code
$ cd Code
$ git clone https://github.com/lobosan/vscode-remote-lamp.git
$ cd vscode-remote-lamp
$ cp sample.env .env
$ code .

Setup your environment variables as needed in your .env file.

Developing in the Remote Container

Once Visual Studio Code opens our project, the configuration file .devcontainer.json will be recognized and a notification should appear on the lower right corner. Click on the blue button Reopen in container to start building the docker images.

Alternatively, click on the green icon >< on the lower left corner and select the command Remote-Containers:Reopen in Container

After this, a new notification should appear, click on the details blue text to see the building process.

To learn more about Remote Containers, go to https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/containers

Install composer dependencies

Once the building process finishes successfuly, open a terminal in Visual Studio Code with the command Ctrl+Shift+` and run:

$ composer install

After the process is finished, your LAMP stack is ready to be used as your PHP development environment. You can access it via http://localhost.

Configuration Variables

The following configuration variables are available and you can customize them by overwritting your own .env file.

DOCUMENT_ROOT

It is a document root for Apache server. The default value for this is ./www. All your sites will go here and will be synced automatically.

MYSQL_DATA_DIR

This is MySQL data directory. The default value for this is ./data/mysql. All your MySQL data files will be stored here.

VHOSTS_DIR

This is for virtual hosts. The default value for this is ./config/vhosts. You can place your virtual hosts conf files here.

Make sure you add an entry to your system's hosts file for each virtual host.

APACHE_LOG_DIR

This will be used to store Apache logs. The default value for this is ./logs/apache2.

MYSQL_LOG_DIR

This will be used to store MySQL logs. The default value for this is ./logs/mysql.

Web Server

Apache is configured to run on port 80. So, you can access it via http://localhost.

Apache Modules

By default following modules are enabled.

• rewrite
• headers

If you want to enable more modules, just update ./bin/webserver/Dockerfile. You have to rebuild the docker image and restart the docker containers.

Connect via SSH

You can connect to web server using docker-compose exec command to perform various operations on it. Use below command to login to container via ssh.

docker-compose exec webserver bash

Extensions

By default following extensions are installed.

• mysqli
• pdo_sqlite
• pdo_mysql
• mbstring
• zip
• intl
• mcrypt
• curl
• json
• iconv
• xml
• xmlrpc
• gd

If you want to install more extension, just update ./bin/webserver/Dockerfile. You have to rebuild the docker image and restart the docker containers.

PhpMyAdmin

PhpMyAdmin is configured to run on port 8080. Use the following default credentials.

http://localhost:8080/ username: root password: root123!@