PHP-Websites-using-Docker-Containers-with-PHP-Apache-and-MySQL

• Setup and run a local PHP Apache server instance.
• Serve a dynamic PHP-driven website.
• Setup a MySQL database to run SQL scripts, fetch records, and print them in a PHP-driven website.

Installing Docker Compose

The following command will download the 1.27.4 release and save the executable file at /usr/local/bin/docker-compose, which will make this software globally accessible as docker-compose:

sudo curl -L "https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/download/1.27.4/docker-compose-$(uname -s)-$(uname -m)" -o /usr/local/bin/docker-compose

Next, set the correct permissions so that the docker-compose command is executable:

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

To verify that the installation was successful, you can run:

docker-compose --version

Step 1.Create docker-compose YML file

We need to add some MySQL support tools inside the PHP container for the two services (db and php-apache) to work correctly. This tool includes mysqli.

Inside your project directory, head to the /php folder, create a Docker file, name it Dockerfile and add the following PHP configurations.

FROM php:8.0-apache
RUN docker-php-ext-install mysqli && docker-php-ext-enable mysqli
RUN apt-get update && apt-get upgrade -y

Now we need to build this custom image inside php-apache service in the docker-compose.yml file. PHP Apache also depends on the db service to connect to MySQL. We need to configure it by specifying a depends_on: environment.

version: '3.8'
services:
   php-apache-environment:
       container_name: php-apache
       build:
           context: ./php
           dockerfile: Dockerfile
       depends_on:
           - db
       volumes:
           - ./php/src:/var/www/html/
       ports:
           - 8000:80
   db:
       container_name: db
       image: mysql
       restart: always
       environment:
           MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD
           MYSQL_DATABASE: MYSQL_DATABASE
           MYSQL_USER: MYSQL_USER
           MYSQL_PASSWORD: MYSQL_PASSWORD
       ports:
           - "9906:3306"

• The container name - this is just a random name that you would like to name your PHP container.
• The container image - this the official PHP image, the version of PHP Apache you want to use.
• The volume - this will set up your present working src directory for your code/source files. If you were to run a PHP script, that file would have to be in that directory.
• The port numbers. This defines the ports where the script will run from.

Serve a dynamic PHP-driven website

You will be executing the scripts from the directory that you defined in the volumes of your docker-compose.

In this case we are using ./php/src.

Head on to your project directory ➙ ./php/src, create an index.php file and start writing your PHP scripts.

A simple index.php script.

<?php
echo "Hello there, this is a PHP Apache container";
?>

Run SQL query using PHP scripts

Let’s test if the container is working as expected. Head over to the index.php file and the following PHP MySQL connection code.

<?php
//These are the defined authentication environment in the db service

// The MySQL service named in the docker-compose.yml.
$host = 'db';

// Database use name
$user = 'MYSQL_USER';

//database user password
$pass = 'MYSQL_PASSWORD';

// check the MySQL connection status
$conn = new mysqli($host, $user, $pass);
if ($conn->connect_error) {
    die("Connection failed: " . $conn->connect_error);
} else {
    echo "Connected to MySQL server successfully!";
}

//create table
$sql = "CREATE TABLE persons(
    id INT NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY AUTO_INCREMENT,
    first_name VARCHAR(30) NOT NULL,
    last_name VARCHAR(30) NOT NULL,
    email VARCHAR(70) NOT NULL UNIQUE
)";
if(mysqli_query($conn, $sql)){
    echo "Table created successfully.";
} else{
    echo "ERROR: Could not able to execute $sql. " . mysqli_error($conn);
}

?>

Save the file and refresh your http://localhost:8000/ web address.

Export and import containers

Exporting a container means creating a compressed file from the container’s file system. The exported file is saved as a ‘gzip’ file.

docker export container-name | gzip > container-name.gz

This compressed file is then copied over to the new host via file transfer tools such as scp or rsync. In the new host, this gzip file is then imported into a new container.

zcat container-name.gz | docker import - container-name