How to set up Laravel with Docker Compose

Introduction

Combining Laravel, a robust PHP framework, with Docker, a cutting-edge containerization technology, is a modern approach to software development. This tutorial guides you through setting up Laravel with Docker Compose in a step-by-step fashion. Whether you are a seasoned developer looking to dockerize your Laravel applications or a beginner curious about containerization, this guide will set you on the right path.

Prerequisites

• Docker and Docker Compose installed on your machine
• Basic understanding of Docker concepts
• Knowledge of Laravel’s requirements

Getting Started

First, ensure that Docker and Docker Compose are correctly installed on your machine. You can verify this by running docker --version and docker-compose --version commands in the terminal.

$ docker --version
Docker version xx.xx.x, build xxxxxxxx
$ docker-compose --version
Docker Compose version x.x.x, build xxxxxxx

If Docker is not installed, please follow the official Docker installation guide for your respective operating system at docker.com/get-started.

Setting up Docker Compose for Laravel

We’ll start by creating a new directory for our Laravel project:

mkdir laravel-docker && cd laravel-docker

Create the Dockerfile

Inside the laravel-docker directory, create a Dockerfile with the following content:

FROM php:8.0-fpm
RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y \n    libonig-dev \n    libxml2-dev \n    zip \n    unzip \n    git \n    curl \n    libpng-dev \n    libjpeg62-turbo-dev \n    libfreetype6-dev \n    && docker-php-ext-configure gd --with-freetype --with-jpeg \n    && docker-php-ext-install -j$(nproc) gd mbstring exif pcntl bcmath opcache \n    && pecl install redis && docker-php-ext-enable redis

This will set up a PHP environment with all the necessary extensions required for a typical Laravel application.

Define Your Services in docker-compose.yml

Create a docker-compose.yml file at the root of your project directory with the following services:

version: '3.8'
services:
  app:
    build:
      context: .
      dockerfile: Dockerfile
    image: laravel-docker-app
    container_name: laravel-docker-app
    restart: unless-stopped
    tty: true
    environment:
      SERVICE_NAME: app
      SERVICE_TAGS: dev
    working_dir: /var/www
    volumes:
      - ./:/var/www
    networks:
      - laravel

  webserver:
    image: nginx:alpine
    container_name: laravel-docker-webserver
    restart: unless-stopped
    tty: true
    ports:
      - "8080:80"
    volumes:
      - ./:/var/www
      - ./docker/nginx:/etc/nginx/conf.d/
    networks:
      - laravel

  db:
    image: mysql:5.7
    container_name: laravel-docker-db
    restart: unless-stopped
    tty: true
    ports:
      - "3306:3306"
    environment:
      MYSQL_DATABASE: laravel
      MYSQL_USER: laraveluser
      MYSQL_PASSWORD: laravelpassword
      MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: rootpassword
    volumes:
      - dbdata:/var/lib/mysql
    networks:
      - laravel

networks:
  laravel:
    driver: bridge

volumes:
  dbdata:
    driver: local

In this configuration, we define three services: app for our Laravel application, a webserver using Nginx, and a db service running MySQL.

Under the volumes section, we create a persistent volume for our database to ensure data is not lost when the container shuts down.

Running the Containers

To bring up the Docker environment, execute the following command:

docker-compose up -d

This will build and start all the services defined in your docker-compose.yml file. You can check the status of your containers with:

docker-compose ps

Conclusion

Setting up Laravel with Docker Compose introduces consistency in development environments amongst team members and enhances production deployment strategies. This guide provided you with the essential steps to containerize your Laravel applications using Docker Compose.