Install WordPress with Docker

Prerequisites

• Read this: WordPress Local Development Using Docker Compose
• Read also this: How to Host Multiple HTTPS Websites on One Server
• Git, docker and docker-compose are installed on your server
• Your host must be publicly reachable on both port 80 and 443. Check your firewall rules to make sure that these ports are open.
• Create a website directory and set up proper permissions. In this tutorial, we’ll assume that the web directory is at /srv/www
• Create domains and subdomains:
  • One for your WordPress website: www.example.com
  • One to access your word press database via phpMyadmin: sql.eample.com

Step 1. Create websites directories

Read more: Create a website directory and set up proper permissions

# 0. settings
web_dir=/srv/www
myusername=kassambara
# 1. Create the website directory
sudo mkdir -p $web_dir
# 2. set your user as the owner
sudo chown -R $myusername $web_dir
# 3. set the web server as the group owner
sudo chgrp -R www-data $web_dir
# 4. 755 permissions for everything
sudo chmod -R 755 $web_dir
# 5. New files and folders inherit 
# group ownership from the parent folder
chmod g+s $web_dir

Step 2. Download a nginx-proxy web server template for hosting multiple websites on the same server

# Download a nginx-proxy template
web_dir=/srv/www
git clone https://github.com/kassambara/nginx-multiple-https-websites-on-one-server $web_dir

# Update nginx.tmpl: Nginx configuration file template
rm -rf $web_dir/nginx-proxy/nginx.tmpl
curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jwilder/nginx-proxy/master/nginx.tmpl> $web_dir/nginx-proxy/nginx.tmpl

# Remove unnecessary files and folders
cd $web_dir
rm -rf your-website-one.com your-website-two.com README.Rmd .gitignore .Rbuildignore .git

The downloaded nginx-proxy folder contains a docker-compose.yml file. This will launch three services:

• nginx: the nginx-reverse proxy, uses the default nginx image. The label is needed so that the letsencrypt container knows which nginx proxy container to use.
• nginx-gen: uses the jwilder/docker-gen image. Its command instruction will render a nginx configuration (based on nginx.tmpl) for each website / container added to the network.
• nginx-letsencrypt: generates and renew the HTTPS certificates. Read more: How to Host Multiple HTTPS Websites on One Server.

All these services are bound to the nginx-proxy network.

Step 3. Download a WordPress docker-compose template

Download a template from Github at: kassambara/wordpress-docker-compose

# Download a WordPress docker-compose template and
# put it in a folder with the same name as your domain name
your_domain_name=www.example.com
cd $web_dir
git clone https://github.com/kassambara/wordpress-docker-compose $your_domain_name

# Change the online docker-compose file name
cd $your_domain_name
mv docker-compose-onlinehost.yml docker-compose.yml

# Remove unnecessary files and folders
rm -rf .git .gitignore

Template directory tree:

www/www.example.com
├── LICENSE
├── Makefile
├── README.md
├── config
│   └── php.conf.ini
├── docker-compose.yml
├── mysql
├── wordpress
├── wp-auto-config.yml
└── wpcli
    ├── Dockerfile
    ├── Makefile
    └── entrypoint.sh

Essential folders:

• mysql: MySQL database files for MariaDB
• wordpress: WordPress web files
• wpcli contains a Dockerfile example to build WordPress CLI.

Essential files:

• setup-onlinehost.sh: Automatically set online production environment variables.
• .env file: contain the environment variables required for the wordpress installation
• docker-compose.yml: WordPress docker compose application services
• Makefile: Set of simple bash command lines to build, install and configure WordPress, as well as, to start and stop the docker containers.

Step 4. Inspect your web directory

Your web directory should look like this:

www
├── README.md
├── nginx-proxy
│   ├── certs
│   ├── conf.d
│   ├── docker-compose.yml
│   ├── html
│   ├── nginx.tmpl
│   └── vhost.d
└── www.example.com
    ├── LICENSE
    ├── Makefile
    ├── README.md
    ├── config
    ├── docker-compose.yml
    ├── mysql
    ├── wordpress
    ├── wp-auto-config.yml
    └── wpcli

Step 5. Edit the WordPress Docker setup environment variables

# 1. Open the setup file
nano $web_dir/$your_domain_name/setup-onlinehost.sh

# 2. Change these settings as you want 
project_name="wordpress"
user_name="wordpress"
pass_word="wordpress"
email="your-email@example.com"
website_title="My Blog"
website_url="https://www.example.com"
phmyadmin_url="sql.example.com"
env_file=".env"
compose_file="docker-compose.yml"

# 3. Execute: 
chmod +x setup-onlinehost.sh && ./setup-onlinehost.sh 

An automatically updated .env file is available to easily set docker-compose variables without having to modify too much the docker-compose.yml configuration file itself.

Open the .env file and update the contents if you want. In our example, the file is located at www/www.example.com/.env

# Open the file
nano $web_dir/$your_domain_name/.env

Contents:

# 1/ Project name -------------------------------------------------
# Must be lower-case, no spaces and no invalid path chars.
# Will be used also as the WP database name
COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAME=wordpress

# 2/ Database user and password -----------------------------------------
# Set non-root database user if wanted (optional)
DATABASE_PASSWORD=password
DATABASE_USER=root

# 3/ For wordpress auto-install and auto-configuration -------------------
WORDPRESS_WEBSITE_TITLE="My Blog"

# URL: Use this for localhost
WORDPRESS_WEBSITE_URL="https://www.example.com"
WORDPRESS_WEBSITE_URL_WITHOUT_HTTP="www.example.com"
WORDPRESS_WEBSITE_POST_URL_STRUCTURE="/blog/%postname%/"

# Website admin identification. Specify a strong password 
WORDPRESS_ADMIN_USER="wordpress"
WORDPRESS_ADMIN_PASSWORD="wordpress"
WORDPRESS_ADMIN_EMAIL="your-email@example.com"

# 4/ Software versions -----------------------------------------------
WORDPRESS_VERSION=latest
MARIADB_VERSION=latest

# 5/ Ports: Can be changed -------------------------------------------
PHPMYADMIN_PORT=8080

# 6/ Volumes on host --------------------------------------------------
WORDPRESS_DATA_DIR=./wordpress

# 7/ Healthcheck availability of host services (mysql and woordpress server)
# Waiting time in second
WAIT_BEFORE_HOSTS=5
WAIT_AFTER_HOSTS=5
WAIT_HOSTS_TIMEOUT=300
WAIT_SLEEP_INTERVAL=60
WAIT_HOST_CONNECT_TIMEOUT=5

# 8/ Used only in online deployement ---------------------------------
WORDPRESS_WEBSITE_URL_WITHOUT_WWW=example.com
PHPMYADMIN_WEBSITE_URL_WITHOUT_HTTP=sql.example.com

Step 6. Edit the docker-compose configuration file

Inspect and update the$web_dir/$your_domain_name/docker-compose.yml file if you want. It contains a container that redirect non-www to www (recommended). If you don’t want this behaviour, just remove the container.

....
# Redirect non-www to www
  redirectnonwww:
    image: cusspvz/redirect
    container_name: ${COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAME}_redirectnonwww
    restart: always
    environment:
      - VIRTUAL_HOST=${WORDPRESS_WEBSITE_URL_WITHOUT_WWW}
      - HTTPS_METHOD=noredirect
      - LETSENCRYPT_HOST=${WORDPRESS_WEBSITE_URL_WITHOUT_WWW}
      - LETSENCRYPT_EMAIL=${WORDPRESS_ADMIN_EMAIL}
      - REDIRECT=${WORDPRESS_WEBSITE_URL}
      # CHANGE THE REDIRECT URL
      - REDIRECT=https://www.example.com
      - WORKER_CONNECTIONS=1024
    networks:
      - ${COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAME}_default
      - nginx-proxy
.....

Step 7. Run the nginx reverse proxy

# 1. Create the docker network. Do this once
docker network create nginx-proxy

# 2. Create the reverse proxy with the 
# nginx, nginx-gen and nginx-letsencrypt containers
cd $web_dir/nginx-proxy/
docker-compose up -d

Step 8. Allow users to post large documents or images

# 1. Create a configuration file for your domain
# in the nginx-proxy vhost folder
nano $web_dir/nginx-proxy/vhost.d/$your_domain_name

# 2. Add this to allow the upload of 64M
client_max_body_size 64M;

One single command to do the above operation:

echo 'client_max_body_size 64M;' > nano $web_dir/nginx-proxy/vhost.d/$your_domain_name

Step 9. Install WordPress using docker compose

Two methods are available for installing and configuring your WordPress web site:

1. Automatic installation + manual configuration
2. Automatic installation + automatic configuration

cd $your_domain_name
docker-compose build
docker-compose up -d 
docker-compose run --rm healthcheck

cd $your_domain_name
make install

docker-compose down
rm -rf mysql/* wordpress/*

# Build docker images and start up wordpress
docker-compose up -d --build
# Automatic wordpress configuration
docker-compose -f docker-compose.yml -f wp-auto-config.yml run --rm wp-auto-config

make autoinstall

Step 10. Access to your website

1. Visit your wordpress website at www.example.com. Default identification for admin (www.example.com/wp-login.php):
   • Username: wordpress and
   • Password: wordpress

2. Visit your database via phpMyAdmin at http://sql.example.com
   • Username: root and
   • Password: password

Shutdown and cleanup

This section present useful set of commands to know.

1. Shutdown WordPress docker containers and dependencies. The command docker-compose down removes the containers and default network, but preserves your WordPress database.

# Stop and remove containers
docker-compose down

2. (Re)start WordPress docker compose containers

docker-compose up -d

3. Reset or reinitialize everything

• Stop and remove containers
• Remove related wordpress and mysql installed files

docker-compose down
rm -rf mysql/* wordpress/*

# Build, and start the wordpress website
make start
# Stop and remove wordpress docker containers
make down
# Reset everything
make reset

Summary

This tutorial provides a practical guide for Docker WordPress production deployment.