{"id":1883,"date":"2019-06-10T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-06-09T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wwwneu.strehle.de\/tim\/weblog\/archives\/2019\/06\/10\/1642-2\/"},"modified":"2025-07-31T21:36:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T19:36:14","slug":"1642-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/weblog\/archives\/2019\/06\/10\/1642-2\/","title":{"rendered":"First steps: A Symfony 4 PHP app in Docker"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I\u2019m currently learning Docker<\/a>, and finding out how to develop a (new) Symfony<\/a> 4 (PHP 7) application locally on my Mac and run it within a Docker container, instead of hosting it in a Linux VM in VMware Fusion as I used to do. Docker Desktop<\/a> and the PhpStorm IDE<\/a> are already installed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Docker setup<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I want to use official, current Docker images from the Docker Hub<\/a>. A colleague convinced me (better scalability?) to use Nginx<\/a> instead of my trusty old Apache Web server. So I need the nginx:latest<\/a> and php:fpm<\/a> images.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While I can use the Nginx image as-is, I need to create my own image on top of the PHP standard one since I will want to add PHP extensions as needed, and to run Composer<\/a> in the container. I ended up with this Dockerfile<\/code><\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FROM php:fpm\n\n# git and unzip for composer installs\nRUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y \\\n        git unzip \\\n    --no-install-recommends && rm -r \/var\/lib\/apt\/lists\/*\n\n# zip for composer installs\nRUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y \\\n        libzip-dev \\\n    && docker-php-ext-install zip\n\nENV COMPOSER_HOME \/tmp\nENV COMPOSER_VERSION 1.8.5\n\n# \"chmod 0777 \/tmp\/cache\" for non-root composer installs\nRUN curl --silent --fail --location --retry 3 --output \/tmp\/installer.php \\\n  --url https:\/\/raw.githubusercontent.com\/composer\/getcomposer.org\/cb19\u2026\/web\/installer \\\n && php -r \" \\\n    \\$signature = '48e3\u2026'; \\\n    \\$hash = hash('sha384', file_get_contents('\/tmp\/installer.php')); \\\n    if (!hash_equals(\\$signature, \\$hash)) { \\\n      unlink('\/tmp\/installer.php'); \\\n      echo 'Integrity check failed, installer is either corrupt or worse.' . PHP_EOL; \\\n      exit(1); \\\n    }\" \\\n && php \/tmp\/installer.php --no-ansi --install-dir=\/usr\/bin --filename=composer \\\n  --version=${COMPOSER_VERSION} \\\n && composer --ansi --version --no-interaction \\\n && rm -f \/tmp\/installer.php \\\n && chmod 0777 \/tmp\/cache\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
This docker-compose.yml<\/code> file<\/a> defines my Nginx and PHP Docker setup:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
version: '3'\n\nservices:\n    php:\n        build:\n            context: .\/docker\/php\n        volumes:\n            - .\/app:\/opt\/app\n            - .\/docker\/php\/zz-log.conf:\/usr\/local\/etc\/php-fpm.d\/zz-log.conf\n    web:\n        image: nginx:latest\n        depends_on:\n          - php\n        ports:\n            - \"8080:80\"\n        volumes:\n            - .\/app:\/opt\/app\n            - .\/docker\/web\/default.conf:\/etc\/nginx\/conf.d\/default.conf\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
The context: .\/docker\/php<\/code> line refers to the directory where I put the Dockerfile shown above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My Symfony application source files reside in a local app<\/code> directory on my Mac, which is empty for now, and mapped via volumes<\/code> into both containers as \/opt\/app<\/code>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
See my Github repo<\/a> for the two configuration files \u2013 a tiny zz-log.conf<\/code> file<\/a> that configures PHP log_errors<\/code> and display_errors<\/code> settings, and the Nginx default.conf<\/code> file<\/a> which contains configuration for Symfony, and hands over PHP requests to the PHP-FPM image.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nginx listens on port 80 inside the container; on my Mac, I can reach it at localhost:8080.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thanks to the fantastic PhpStorm Docker support<\/a>, I can simply click the green \u201cdocker-compose up\u201d arrows that show up in docker-compose.yml<\/code> in the IDE to start the Docker containers (downloading and building images when run for the first time):<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"PhpStorm<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Creating a Symfony application<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
PhpStorm lets me \u201cExec\u201d commands within a Docker container, but I prefer my Mac\u2019s Terminal application. To discover the current container IDs (changing after a restart), I use docker ps<\/code>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
$ docker ps\nCONTAINER ID        IMAGE                           COMMAND                  \n0b83693cc0ff        nginx:latest                    \"nginx -g 'daemon of\u2026\"   \u2026\n9fade34cfdb7        symfony-in-docker-example_php   \"docker-php-entrypoi\u2026\"   \u2026\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Now I run composer create-project<\/code> (as per the Symfony documentation<\/a>) in the PHP container to create a Symfony application in the local app<\/code> directory:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
$ docker exec --workdir \/opt --user daemon:daemon -it 9fade34cfdb7 \\\n  composer create-project symfony\/skeleton app\nInstalling symfony\/skeleton (v4.3.1.1)\n  - Installing symfony\/skeleton (v4.3.1.1): Downloading (100%)  \n  [\u2026]\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
And with that command, my Symfony application is up and running at http:\/\/localhost:8080\/<\/code>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"PhpStorm<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I can add more required packages via Composer (I usually add Monolog<\/a>):<\/p>\n\n\n\n
$ docker exec --workdir \/opt\/app --user daemon:daemon -it 9fade34cfdb7 \\\n  composer require symfony\/monolog-bundle\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
And use the Symfony console<\/code> command:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
$ docker exec --workdir \/opt\/app --user daemon:daemon -it 9fade34cfdb7 \\\n  bin\/console about\n -------------------- --------------------------------- \n  Symfony                                               \n -------------------- --------------------------------- \n  Version              4.3.1                            \n  [\u2026]\n -------------------- --------------------------------- \n  PHP                                                   \n -------------------- --------------------------------- \n  Version              7.3.5                            \n  [\u2026]\n -------------------- --------------------------------- \n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
To see Symfony log output on the Docker console output (STDOUT), I change app\/config\/packages\/dev\/monolog.yaml<\/code><\/a> to contain path: \"php:\/\/stdout\"<\/code>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next step is creating your first page in Symfony<\/a>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thanks<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Thanks to the bloggers that helped me figure all this out \u2013 Making your dockerised PHP application even better<\/a> by the Geeky Platypus, My Simple Approach to using Docker and PHP<\/a> by Paul Redmond, and Structuring the Docker setup for PHP Projects<\/a> by Pascal Landau.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019m currently learning Docker, and finding out how to develop a (new) Symfony 4 (PHP 7) application locally on my Mac and run it within a Docker container, instead of hosting it in a Linux VM in VMware Fusion as I used to do. Docker Desktop and the PhpStorm IDE are already installed. Docker setup […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weblog"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1883"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1891,"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1883\/revisions\/1891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}