Containerise Laravel App with Docker: A Step-by-Step Guide

Introduction

Containerising a Laravel application has become a best practice for modern web development. It ensures seamless deployment, scalability, and consistency across different environments. Docker for Laravel simplifies the setup by packaging everything needed to run the application, including PHP, Nginx, and MySQL. In this guide, we will walk you through setting up Laravel in Docker efficiently.

Why Use Docker for Laravel?

Key Benefits:

• Consistency: It works the same across all environments.
• Scalability: You can easily scale your Laravel application.
• Efficient Deployment: It simplifies CI/CD pipelines.
• Quick Setup: There is no need to manually configure dependencies.

Prerequisites

Before getting started, make sure you have:

• Docker installed.
• Docker Compose.
• A Laravel project (or create one using laravel new myapp).

Setting Up Docker for Laravel

1. Create a Dockerfile

Inside your Laravel project, create a Dockerfile at the root directory.

# Use official PHP image with necessary extensions
FROM php:8.3-fpm

# Set working directory
WORKDIR /var/www

# Install dependencies
RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y \
    libpng-dev \
    zip \
    unzip \
    git \
    curl \
    libonig-dev \
    && docker-php-ext-install pdo_mysql mbstring exif pcntl bcmath gd

# Install Composer
COPY --from=composer:latest /usr/bin/composer /usr/bin/composer

# Copy Laravel application files
COPY . .

# Set permissions
RUN chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www

CMD ["php-fpm"]

2. Create an nginx.conf File

Next, create an nginx.conf file inside a new docker directory:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name localhost;
    root /var/www/public;
    index index.php index.html index.htm;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string;
    }

    location ~ \.php$ {
        include fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_pass php:9000;
        fastcgi_index index.php;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
    }

    location ~ /\.ht {
        deny all;
    }
}

3. Create a docker-compose.yml File

The docker-compose.yml file will help you manage multiple Docker containers for Laravel.

version: '3.8'

services:
  app:
    build: .
    container_name: laravel_app
    restart: always
    working_dir: /var/www
    volumes:
      - .:/var/www
    depends_on:
      - db
    networks:
      - laravel

  webserver:
    image: nginx:latest
    container_name: nginx_server
    restart: always
    ports:
      - "8000:80"
    volumes:
      - .:/var/www
      - ./docker/nginx.conf:/etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf
    depends_on:
      - app
    networks:
      - laravel

  db:
    image: mysql:8.0
    container_name: mysql_db
    restart: always
    environment:
      MYSQL_DATABASE: laravel
      MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: root
      MYSQL_USER: laravel_user
      MYSQL_PASSWORD: secret
    volumes:
      - dbdata:/var/lib/mysql
    networks:
      - laravel

networks:
  laravel:
    driver: bridge

volumes:
  dbdata:
    driver: local

4. Configure Laravel .env File for Docker

Modify the .env file to match the database settings for Laravel and MySQL in Docker:

DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=db
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=laravel
DB_USERNAME=laravel_user
DB_PASSWORD=secret

5. Build and Run Laravel Containers with Docker

Now, run the following command to build and start the containers:

docker-compose up -d --build

6. Run Laravel Migrations Inside Docker

Once the containers are running, execute Laravel migrations:

docker-compose exec app php artisan migrate

7. Access Laravel Application in Browser

After setting everything up, open your browser and go to:

http://localhost:8000

You should now see your Laravel application running inside a Docker container.

Optimising Laravel for Production in Docker

For production environments, consider these optimisations:

• Use Docker multi-stage builds to reduce image size.
• Enable Laravel cache optimisations (php artisan config:cache and php artisan route:cache).
• Use supervisor to manage background jobs.
• Add a Redis container for improved session and queue handling.

Conclusion

In this guide, we explored how to containerise a Laravel application with Docker. We covered the complete setup, from defining a Dockerfile to configuring Nginx, MySQL, and Laravel. We also discussed best practices for production optimisation. By leveraging Laravel, Docker, Nginx, and MySQL, developers can create scalable, maintainable applications with minimal configuration.

If you need assistance with Laravel and Docker, we at Techliphant can help. Our team specializes in Laravel development, Docker deployments, and scalable cloud infrastructure solutions. Feel free to reach out for expert guidance.

For more Laravel and Docker tutorials, stay tuned and feel free to share this guide if you found it useful!