Install WordPress with Docker

Quick start

1. Download an example wordpress docker-compose template:

git clone https://github.com/kassambara/wordpress-docker-compose
cd wordpress-docker-compose

2. Start docker-compose wordpress installation

You can use either the docker-compose standard commands or the make command.

• Using the make shortcut commands (easy for Unix systems (MAC, Linux)):

make install

• Using the docker-compose standard commands:

# Buid images, then start
docker-compose up -d --build
# Check availability of services: MySQL, Nginx/Wordpress
docker-compose run --rm healthcheck

3. Configure wordpress manually

• Visit your site at http://localhost to start configuring your wordpress installation.
• Visit the phpMyAdmin interface to your database at http://localhost:8080. Default identification:
  • Username: root and
  • Password: password

Automatic docker wordpress installation and configuration:

• Using the make shortcut commands (easy for Unix systems (MAC, Linux)):

make autoinstall

• Using docker-compose standard commands:

# 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

• Visit your site at http://localhost

Useful set of commands to know:

• Using the make shortcut commands (easy for Unix systems (MAC, Linux)):

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

• Using docker-compose standard commands:

# Stop and remove containers
docker-compose down
# Build, and start the wordpress website
docker-compose up -d --build
# Reset everything
docker-compose down
rm -rf mysql/* wordpress/*

Step 1. Download a WordPress docker-compose template

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

git clone https://github.com/kassambara/wordpress-docker-compose
cd wordpress-docker-compose

Template directory tree:

files/wordpress-docker-compose
├── LICENSE
├── Makefile
├── README.Rmd
├── README.md
├── config
│   └── php.conf.ini
├── docker-compose-onlinehost.yml
├── 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:

• .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 2. Inspect the content of configuration files (optional)

Step 3. Edit the WordPress Docker setup environment variables

A .env file has been included to easily set docker-compose variables without having to modify the docker-compose.yml configuration file itself.

Default values have been provided as a means of getting up and running quickly for testing purposes. It is up to the user to modify these to best suit their deployment preferences.

Open the .env file and update the contents if you want. For example, just change the project name and your password (for database and wordpress admin).

# Open the file
nano .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="http://localhost"
WORDPRESS_WEBSITE_URL_WITHOUT_HTTP=localhost
# Or this for online hosting (remove the # comment prefix)
# WORDPRESS_WEBSITE_URL="http://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 4. 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

docker-compose build
docker-compose up -d 
docker-compose run --rm healthcheck

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 5. Access to your website

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

2. Visit your database via phpMyAdmin at http://localhost:8080
   • 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

Debugging tips on Windows

If you encounter an error on the mysql container like this:

[ERROR] Plugin ‘InnoDB’ registration as a STORAGE ENGINE failed.
[ERROR] Unknown/unsupported storage engine: InnoDB

please add the following to the mysql stanza:

command: --innodb-flush-method=fsync --innodb-use-native-aio=0

This is partly because Windows (or to be precise NTFS) doesn’t support Asynchronous I/Os (see this for more details).

Summary

This tutorial provides a practical guide for WordPress local development using docker compose.

References

• WordPress: with Nginx web server in Docker
• Quickstart: Compose and WordPress
• WordPress, the automated way (part 1): setup