Larapacket

Larapacket is a drop in files for Laravel applications to start using Docker in development and production. These files include Docker files to build the necessary images, a compose file for development usage and a production deployment files via Docker swarm.

The docker directory contains all Docker files and scripts to start using Docker with a Laravel application. The Docker setup depends on these official Docker images.

• ubuntu:18.04 which uses PHP v7.4 and composer v2
• mysql:5.7
• redis:5.0.7
• node:15.0.1-alpine3.12

The compose file build two images; The app image and node image. The app image is the main image for the application which contains Nginx, PHP-FPM and Supervisor. The node image is used for front-end development. The two images are scoped under repository name laravelapp.

Docker compose

A docker-compose.yml file has been added to build and run containers in development from one command.

$ docker-compose up

The docker-compose.yml file take environment variables from the .env file and use it in building and running the services of the application.

Development with compose:

To running commands against docker-compose containers the docker-run script can be used. The script translate the arguments given to it and execute them in the correct container. The following table shows usage examples:

Command	Container	Example
./docker-run composer ...	app	./docker-run composer dump -o
./docker-run artisan ...	app	./docker-run artisan migrate
./docker-run redis ...	redis	./docker-run redis set foo bar
./docker-run mysql ...	mysql	./docker-run mysql -u root -p
./docker-run npm ...	node	./docker-run npm run watch
./docker-run ...	app	./docker-run ls

All services of docker compose redirect their logs to the STDOUT and STDERR, so when running docker-compose up the logs will be redirected to terminal.

Docker Swarm

A compose file is included in the docker directory to be used to deploy application to a Docker swarm cluster. The compose file define a stack for the application. The stack has a web, mysql and redis services. The web service uses an image that will contain the application code ready for production use. This service runs in replica mode with 3 replicas. The mysql and redis services run using DNSRR (DNS Round-Robin) entry point mode with single replica on a manager node. DNS Round-Robin mode is used since these services has single task, hence no need for virtual network in front of these two services. The compose file has environment variables, like credentials. That need to be replaced with application specific ones. Also, the compose file need to get the production ready images from Docker Hub or your private Docker registery.

To deploy to swarm. First initialize a swarm and join other nodes to the cluster. Then edit the stack compose file docker-stack.yml in docker directory and substitute the environment variables with your own ones. Then execute the following command on a manager node;

$ docker stack deploy -c docker/docker-stack.yml

The web service is expected to contain the application code ready for production use.

Data persistence:

The database data and redis cache data are mounted to Docker named volumes in the two (development and production environments) compose files.

Caveats

• A .env file must be created as usual in the root directory of the project. Docker compose use that file in building the services containers.
• For MYSQL, to use the root user remove the MYSQL_USER and MYSQL_PASSWORD environment variables from mysql service in docker-compose file.
• Changing MYSQL credentials in docker-compose for .env file will not take effect in an already created database (check MYSQL docs in hub.docker)
• When deploying to production using Docker stack, edit the docker/docker-stack.yml file and replace the environment variables in the file with your own.
• Change the owner of application files to Nginx process to avoid permission issues when Laravel change files in application using Nginx process. $ chown -R www-data: html/