General purpose PHP images for Docker
This repository contains a set of developer-friendly, general purpose PHP images for Docker.
- You can enable or disable the extensions using environment variables.
- You can also modify the
php.inisettings using environment variables. - 2 types available:
slim(no extensions preloaded) orfat(most common PHP extensions are built-in) - 3 variants available:
CLI,apacheandfpm - Fat images are bundled with Supercronic which is a Cron compatible task runner. Cron jobs can be configured using environment variables
- Fat images come with Composer and Prestissimo installed
- All variants can be installed with or without NodeJS (if you need to build your static assets).
- Everything is done to limit file permission issues that often arise when using Docker. The image is actively tested on Linux, Windows and MacOS
Images
Note: we also tag patch releases of PHP versions. So you can specify a specific patch release using thecodingmachine/php:8.0.2-v4-cli for instance. However, unless you have a very specific need (for instance if the latest patch release of PHP introduced regressions), believe you have no valid reason to ask explicitly for 8.0.2 for instance. When 8.0.3 is out, you certainly want to upgrade automatically to this patch release since patch releases contain only bugfixes. Also, we automatically rebuild X.Y images every week, but only the latest X.Y.Z patch release gets a rebuild. The other patch releases are frozen in time and will contain bugs and security issues. So use those with great care.
[Major].[minor] images are automatically updated when a new patch version of PHP is released, so the PHP 7.4 image will always contain the most up-to-date version of the PHP 7.4.x branch.
Usage
These images are based on the official PHP image.
Example with CLI:
$ docker run -it --rm --name my-running-script -v "$PWD":/usr/src/app thecodingmachine/php:8.2-v4-cli php your-script.phpExample with Apache:
$ docker run -p 80:80 --rm --name my-apache-php-app -v "$PWD":/var/www/html thecodingmachine/php:8.2-v4-apacheExample with PHP-FPM:
$ docker run -p 9000:9000 --rm --name my-php-fpm -v "$PWD":/var/www/html thecodingmachine/php:8.2-v4-fpmExample with Apache + Node 14.x in a Dockerfile:
Dockerfile
FROM thecodingmachine/php:8.2-v4-apache-node14
COPY src/ /var/www/html/
RUN composer install
RUN npm install
RUN npm run buildExtensions available
This image comes with 2 "types": the slim and the fat image.
These extensions are enabled by default in slim image: calendar ctype curl date dom exif fileinfo filter ftp gettext iconv json mbstring opcache openssl pcntl pcre PDO Phar posix readline shmop Reflection session shmop SimpleXML sockets sodium SPL sysvmsg sysvsem sysvshm tokenizer xml xmlreader xmlwriter xsl zip
This list can be outdated, you can verify by executing : docker run --rm -it thecodingmachine/php:8.2-v4-slim-cli php -m
The slim image provides a simple way to install the other extensions. You would typically use the "slim" image in a Dockerfile when building your own custom image.
The fat image contains the most commonly used extensions. You would typically use it in a local or CI environment.
Fat image
Below is a list of extensions available in this image:
Enabled by default (in addition to extensions enabled in Slim image): apcu, hash, iconv, igbinary, mysqli, mysqlnd, redis, soap, xsl, zlib and all enabled in slim.
Available (can be enabled using environment variables): amqp ast bcmath blackfire bz2 dba ds enchant ev event exif ffi mailparse msgpack gd gettext gmp gnupg grpc igbinary imagick imap intl ldap mcrypt memcached mongodb pcov pdo_dblib pdo_pgsql pdo_sqlite pgsql pspell shmop snmp sockets sqlite3 swoole tidy uploadprogress uuid weakref(-beta) xdebug xmlrpc xsl yaml
This list can be outdated, you can verify by executing : docker run --rm -it thecodingmachine/php:8.2-v4-cli php -m
Note:
- mcrypt is not available anymore in PHP 7.3+
- weakref is not compatible with PHP 7.3+ (but weak references were added to the PHP core in PHP 7.4)
- event, gnupg are not available in PHP 8.0+
- gettext, ev, swoole are not available in PHP 8.1+
- ev, rdkafka, snmp, swoole are not available in all
ARM64images (build time is too long : it's possible to install manually as required) - ffi is only available in PHP 7.4+
Enabling/disabling extensions in the fat image
You can enable/disable extensions using the PHP_EXTENSION_[extension_name] environment variable.
For instance:
version: '3'
services:
my_app:
image: thecodingmachine/php:8.2-v4-apache-node16
environment:
# Enable the PostgreSQL extension
PHP_EXTENSION_PGSQL: 1
# Disable the Mysqli extension (otherwise it is enabled by default)
PHP_EXTENSION_MYSQLI: 0As an alternative, you can use the PHP_EXTENSIONS global variable:
PHP_EXTENSIONS=pgsql gettext imapCompiling extensions in the slim image
If you are using the slim image, you can automatically compile the extensions using the PHP_EXTENSIONS ARG in your Dockerfile.
ARG PHP_EXTENSIONS="apcu mysqli pdo_mysql redis soap"
FROM thecodingmachine/php:8.2-v4-slim-apache
# The build will automatically trigger the download and compilation
# of the extensions (thanks to a ONBUILD hook in the slim image)Beware :
- The
ARG PHP_EXTENSIONScommand must be written before theFROM. This is not a typo. ARG PHP_EXTENSIONS=""it's not the same asENV PHP_EXTENSIONS=""- You can't use
ARG PHP_EXTENSION_MYEXT=""like the fat image. - Heads up: if you are using multistage builds, the "ARG" variable must be put at the very top of the file (before the first FROM):
# The PHP_EXTENSIONS ARG will apply to the "slim" image
ARG PHP_EXTENSIONS="apcu mysqli pdo_mysql soap"
FROM thecodingmachine/php:8.2-v4-apache-node16 AS builder
COPY --chown=docker:docker sources/web .
RUN composer install &&\
yarn install &&\
yarn build
# The slim image will automatically build the extensions from the list provided at the very top of the file.
FROM thecodingmachine/php:7.2-v4-slim-apache
ENV APP_ENV=prod \
APACHE_DOCUMENT_ROOT=public/
COPY --from=builder /var/www/html .In the sample above, we use the fat image to perform a "yarn build", but copy the result in a slim image that does not contain Node, and contains only required extensions.
Setting parameters in php.ini
By default, the base php.ini file used is the development php.ini file that comes with PHP.
You can use the production php.ini file using the TEMPLATE_PHP_INI environment variable:
# Use the production php.ini file as a base
TEMPLATE_PHP_INI=productionYou can override parameters in php.ini using the PHP_INI_XXX environment variables:
version: '3'
services:
my_app:
image: thecodingmachine/php:8.2-v4-apache-node16
environment:
# set the parameter memory_limit=1g
PHP_INI_MEMORY_LIMIT: 1g
# set the parameter error_reporting=EALL
PHP_INI_ERROR_REPORTING: E_ALLAbsolutely all php.ini parameters can be set.
Internally, the image will map all environment variables starting with PHP_INI_.
If your php.ini parameter contains a dot ("."), you can replace it with a double underscore ("__").
For instance:
# Will set the parameter xdebug.remote_autostart=1
PHP_INI_XDEBUG__REMOTE_AUTOSTART=1Default working directory
The working directory (the directory in which you should mount/copy your application) depends on the image variant you are using:
| Variant | Working directory |
|---|---|
| cli | /usr/src/app |
| apache | /var/www/html |
| fpm | /var/www/html |
Changing Apache document root
For the apache variant, you can change the document root of Apache (i.e. your "public" directory) by using the
APACHE_DOCUMENT_ROOT variable:
# The root of your website is in the "public" directory:
APACHE_DOCUMENT_ROOT=public/If the APACHE_DOCUMENT_ROOT starts with a "/", it will be considered an absolute path. If the APACHE_DOCUMENT_ROOT does not starts with a "/", it will be a path relative to "/var/www/html".
# These 2 variables are identical
APACHE_DOCUMENT_ROOT=public/
APACHE_DOCUMENT_ROOT=/var/www/html/publicEnabling/disabling Apache extensions
You can enable/disable Apache extensions using the APACHE_EXTENSION_[extension_name] environment variable.
For instance:
version: '3'
services:
my_app:
image: thecodingmachine/php:8.2-v4-apache-node16
environment:
# Enable the DAV extension for Apache
APACHE_EXTENSION_DAV: 1
# Enable the SSL extension for Apache
APACHE_EXTENSION_SSL: 1As an alternative, you can use the APACHE_EXTENSIONS global variable:
APACHE_EXTENSIONS="dav ssl"Apache modules enabled by default: access_compat alias auth_basic authn_core authn_file authz_core authz_host authz_user autoindex deflate dir env expires filter mime mpm_prefork negotiation php8.0 (depend of your active version) reqtimeout rewrite setenvif status
Apache modules available: access_compat actions alias allowmethods asis auth_basic auth_digest auth_form authn_anon authn_core authn_dbd authn_dbm authn_file authn_socache authnz_fcgi authnz_ldap authz_core authz_dbd authz_dbm authz_groupfile authz_host authz_owner authz_user autoindex brotli buffer cache cache_disk cache_socache cern_meta cgi cgid charset_lite data dav dav_fs dav_lock dbd deflate dialup dir dump_io echo env ext_filter expires file_cache filter headers heartbeat heartmonitor http2 ident imagemap include info lbmethod_bybusyness lbmethod_byrequests lbmethod_bytraffic lbmethod_heartbeat ldap log_debug log_forensic lua macro md mime mime_magic mpm_event mpm_prefork mpm_worker negotiation php8.0 (depend of your active version) proxy proxy_ajp proxy_balancer proxy_connect proxy_express proxy_fcgi proxy_fdpass proxy_ftp proxy_hcheck proxy_html proxy_http proxy_http2 proxy_scgi proxy_wstunnel ratelimit reflector remoteip reqtimeout request rewrite sed session session_cookie session_crypto session_dbd setenvif slotmem_plain slotmem_shm socache_dbm socache_memcache socache_redis socache_shmcb speling ssl status substitute suexec unique_id userdir usertrack vhost_alias xml2enc
This list can be outdated, you can verify by executing : docker run --rm -it thecodingmachine/php:8.2-v4-slim-apache a2enmod
Debugging
To enable XDebug you simply have to set the environment variable:
PHP_EXTENSION_XDEBUG=1If you enable XDebug, the image will do its best to configure the xdebug.client_host to point back to your Docker host.
Behind the scenes, the image will:
- set the parameter
xdebug.mode=debug - if you are using a Linux machine, the
xdebug.client_hostIP will point to your Docker gateway - if you are using a Windows or MaxOS machine, the
xdebug.client_hostIP will point tohost.docker.internalordocker.for.mac.localhost
If you want to debug directly inside your container (for example if you're using VSCode devcontainers) you can overwrite the xdebug.client_host value by setting the following environment variable:
XDEBUG_CLIENT_HOST=127.0.0.1In that case the manually set value takes precedence over the mentioned ones above.
NodeJS
The fat images come with a Node variant. You can use Node 10, 12, 14 or 16. If you need a Node 8 variant, use thecodingmachine/php v3 images. If you need a Node 6 variant, use thecodingmachine/php v1 images.
If you use the slim images, you can install a NodeJS version with a simple ARG during the build:
ARG NODE_VERSION=14
FROM thecodingmachine/php:8.2-v4-slim-apache
# The build will automatically trigger the download of Node 14
# (thanks to a ONBUILD hook in the slim image)Beware! The ARG NODE_VERSION command must be written before the FROM. This is not a typo.
NODE_VERSION can take any valid node versions (from 6 to 11 at the time of writing this README)
Permissions
Ever faced file permission issues with Docker? Good news, this is a thing of the past!
If you are used to running Docker containers with the base PHP image, you probably noticed that when running commands
(like composer install) within the container, files are associated to the root user. This is because the base user
of the image is "root".
When you mount your project directory into /var/www/html, it would be great if the default user used by Docker could
be your current host user.
The problem with Docker is that the container and the host do not share the same list of users. For instance, you might
be logged in on your host computer as superdev (ID: 1000), and the container has no user whose ID is 1000.
The thecodingmachine/php images solve this issue with a bit of black magic:
The image contains a user named docker. On container startup, the startup script will look at the owner of the
working directory (/var/www/html for Apache/PHP-FPM, or /usr/src/app for CLI). The script will then assume that
you want to run commands as this user. So it will dynamically change the ID of the docker user to match the ID of
the current working directory user.
Furthermore, the image is changing the Apache default user/group to be docker/docker (instead if www-data/www-data).
So Apache will run with the same rights as the user on your host.
The direct result is that, in development:
- Your PHP application can edit any file
- Your container can edit any file
- You can still edit any file created by Apache or by the container in CLI
Using this image in production
By changing the Apache user to be docker:docker, we are lowering the security.
This is OK for a development environment, but this should be avoided in production.
Indeed, in production, Apache should not be allowed to edit PHP files of your application. If for some reason, an
attacker manages to change PHP files using a security hole, he could then run any PHP script by editing the PHP files
of your application.
In production, you want to change back the Apache user to www-data.
This can be done easily:
Dockerfile
FROM thecodingmachine/php:8.2-v4-apache
# ...
# Change back Apache user and group to www-data
ENV APACHE_RUN_USER=www-data \
APACHE_RUN_GROUP=www-dataSetting up CRON jobs
You can set up CRON jobs using environment variables too.
To do this, you need to configure 3 variables:
# configure the user that will run cron (defaults to root)
CRON_USER=root
# configure the schedule for the cron job (here: run every minute)
CRON_SCHEDULE=* * * * *
# last but not least, configure the command
CRON_COMMAND=vendor/bin/console do:stuffBy default, CRON output will be redirected to Docker output.
If you have more than one job to run, you can suffix your environment variable with the same string. For instance:
CRON_USER_1=root
CRON_SCHEDULE_1=* * * * *
CRON_COMMAND_1=vendor/bin/console do:stuff
CRON_USER_2=www-data
CRON_SCHEDULE_2=0 3 * * *
CRON_COMMAND_2=vendor/bin/console other:stuffCron is installed by default in the fat images. If you are using the "slim" images, you need to install it by passing a single argument before the "FROM" clause in your Dockerfile:
ARG INSTALL_CRON=1
FROM thecodingmachine/php:8.2-v4-slim-apache
# The build triggers automatically the installation of CronImportant: The cron runner we use is "Supercronic" and not the orginial "cron" that has a number of issues with containers. Even with Supercronic, the architecture of cron was never designed with Docker in mind (Cron is way older than Docker). It will run correctly on your container. If at some point you want to scale and add more containers, it will run on all your containers. At that point, if you only want to run a Cron task once for your application (and not once per container), you might want to have a look at alternative solutions like Tasker or use the native features of your orchestrator (if you use Kubernetes, you have a native task runner available), or one of the many other alternatives.
Please notice that by default, containers are running in the UTC timezone. So your CRONs will run at UTC time.
If you want to change a timezone in a container, you can use the TZ environment variable.
# Run this cron at 1 am, Paris time
TZ=Europe/Paris
CRON_SCHEDULE_1=0 1 * * *
CRON_COMMAND_1=vendor/bin/console do:stuffSupercronic options
To specify Supercronic options you can set the SUPERCRONIC_OPTIONS environment variable.
This can be used to enable duplicate jobs. Per default, Supercronic will wait for a given job to finish before that job is scheduled again.
With the option -overlapping Supercronic will run duplicate instances of the jobs instead of waiting for them.
SUPERCRONIC_OPTIONS=-overlapping
# Or multiple options
SUPERCRONIC_OPTIONS=-overlapping -debugFor more options see see the Supercronic Documentation.
Launching commands on container startup
You can launch commands on container startup using the STARTUP_COMMAND_XXX environment variables.
This can be very helpful to install dependencies or apply database patches for instance:
STARTUP_COMMAND_1=composer install
STARTUP_COMMAND_2=vendor/bin/doctrine orm:schema-tool:update As an alternative, the images will look into the container for an executable file named /etc/container/startup.sh.
If such a file is mounted in the image, it will be executed on container startup.
docker run -it --rm --name my-running-script -v "$PWD":/usr/src/myapp -w /usr/src/myapp \
-v $PWD/my-startup-script.sh:/etc/container/startup.sh thecodingmachine/php:8.2-v4-cli php your-script.php Using the CLI variant
The CLI images (thecodingmachine/php:8.2-v4-cli) expect a command to be passed in parameter. You should override the Docker "command".
Important! You should not override the Docker "entrypoint".
Usage in a Dockerfile:
FROM thecodingmachine/php:8.2-v4-cli
CMD ["php", "myprogram.php", "some_param"]Usage with Docker compose:
docker-compose.yml
version: '3'
services:
my_app:
image: thecodingmachine/php:8.2-v4-cli
command: php myprogram.php some_paramRegistering SSH private keys
If your PHP project as a dependency on a package stored in a private GIT repository,
your composer install commands will not work unless you register your private key in the container.
You have several options to do this.
Option 1: mount your keys in the container directly
This option is the easiest way to go if you are using the image on a development environment.
docker-compose.yml
version: '3'
services:
my_app:
image: thecodingmachine/php:8.2-v4-apache-node16
volumes:
- ~/.ssh:/home/docker/.sshOption 2: store the keys from environment variables or build arguments
Look at this option if you are building a Dockerfile from this image.
The first thing to do is to get the signature of the server you want to connect to.
$ ssh-keyscan myserver.comCopy the output and put it in an environment variable. We assume the content is stored in $SSH_KNOWN_HOSTS.
Now, let's write a Dockerfile.
Dockerfile
FROM thecodingmachine/php:8.2-v4-apache
ARG SSH_PRIVATE_KEY
ARG SSH_KNOWN_HOSTS
# Let's register the private key
RUN ssh-add <(echo "$SSH_PRIVATE_KEY")
# Let's add the server to the list of known hosts.
RUN echo "$SSH_KNOWN_HOSTS" >> ~/.ssh/known_hostsFinally, when triggering the build, you must pass the 2 variables as build arguments:
$ docker build -t my_image --build-arg SSH_PRIVATE_KEY="$SSH_PRIVATE_KEY" --build-arg SSH_KNOWN_HOSTS="$SSH_KNOWN_HOSTS" .Usage in Kubernetes
If you plan to use this image in Kubernetes, please be aware that the image internally uses sudo. This is because the
default user (docker) needs to be able to edit php config files as root.
Kubernetes has a security setting (allowPrivilegeEscalation) that can disallow the use of sudo. The use of this flag
breaks the image and in the logs, you will find the message:
sudo: effective uid is not 0, is /usr/bin/sudo on a file system with the 'nosuid' option set or an NFS file system without root privileges?
Please be sure that this option is never set to false:
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
# ...
spec:
containers:
- name: foobar
image: thecodingmachine/php:8.2-v4-apache
securityContext:
allowPrivilegeEscalation: true # never use "false" here.Profiling with Blackfire
This image comes with the Blackfire PHP probe. You can install it using:
PHP_EXTENSION_BLACKFIRE=1By default, the image expects that the blackfire agent is started in another container.
Your docker-compose.yml file will typically look like this:
docker-compose.yml
version: '3.3'
services:
php:
image: thecodingmachine/php:8.2-v4-apache
ports:
- "80:80"
environment:
PHP_EXTENSION_BLACKFIRE: 1
blackfire:
image: blackfire/blackfire
environment:
# Exposes the host BLACKFIRE_SERVER_ID and TOKEN environment variables.
- BLACKFIRE_SERVER_ID
- BLACKFIRE_SERVER_TOKEN
# You can also use global environment credentials :
# BLACKFIRE_SERVER_ID: SERVER-ID
# BLACKFIRE_SERVER_TOKEN: SERVER-TOKENSee Blackfire Docker documentation for more information.
The image assumes that the Blackfire agent is accessible via the blackfire URL (like in the exemple above).
If for some reason, the container name is not "blackfire", you can customize the agent URL with the BLACKFIRE_AGENT environment variable:
docker-compose.yml
version: '3.3'
services:
php:
image: thecodingmachine/php:8.2-v4-apache
environment:
PHP_EXTENSION_BLACKFIRE: 1
BLACKFIRE_AGENT: myblackfire
# ...
myblackfire:
image: blackfire/blackfire
environment:
# ...Migrating from older image versions
Check the migration notes.
Contributing
There is one branch per minor PHP version and version of the image.
Please submit your pull requests to the lowest branch where is applies.
The Dockerfiles and the README are generated from a template using Orbit.
If you want to modify a Dockerfile or the README, you should instead edit the utils/Dockerfile.blueprint
or utils/README.blueprint.md and then run the command:
$ orbit run generateThis command will generate all the files from the "blueprint" templates.
You can then test your changes using the build-and-test.sh command:
PHP_VERSION=8.2 BRANCH=v4 VARIANT=apache ./build-and-test.shAdditional environment in build-and-test.sh
- BUILDER: either build or buildx depending on your configuration. Defaults to build
- BLACKFIRE_VERSION: defaults to 1. You can install v2 if you're feeling adventurous by specifying 2 as a value.
- PLATFORM: Docker will default to your architecture for building images. However, if you have QEMU set up in your machine, you can try building for another architecture like linux/arm64
Only one platform at a time is supported during the build and test script execution.
APPLE SILICON CONSIDERATIONS
Filesystem management works differently in Apple's macOS, so, if you're trying to build a linux/arm64 image (that is best suited for using in a M1/M2 Mac than a linux/amd64 one), there's a high likelihood that the filesystem user and permissions with busybox are going to fail.
Although the test fails, when using the built image, everything works as expected.
Run a virtual machine with linux/arm64 with Docker installed in it and, then, build and test the image. You'll take advantage of the ARM speed and will also be able to run the unit tests properly.
Adding additional images
To add a new version (php, node, apache, ...), please edit the following files :
- utils/README.blueprint.md
- Add your image in this section: Images
- orbit.yml: Your image in generation task
- .travis.yml: To check the new image
- build-and-test.sh: Add your image in test
Special thanks
These images have been strongly inspired by tetraweb/php.