docker-php

Provides a pre-wired, configurable PHP + Nginx setup across multiple runtime versions.

Integrated with Behance’s docker-nginx

Available on Docker Hub.

Quick-start

• docker run behance/docker-php:7.4-alpine "php" "-v"
• docker run behance/docker-php:7.4" "php" "-v"
• docker run behance/docker-php:8.0" "php" "-v"
• docker run behance/docker-php:8.1" "php" "-v"

Adding code to runtime, see here. PHP tuning and configuration, see here. Nginx tuning and configuration, see here. Adding startup logic, basic or advanced.

Container tag scheme: PHP_MAJOR.PHP_MINOR(-Major.Minor.Patch)(-variant)

• PHP_MAJOR.PHP_MINOR, required. Engine versions of PHP. ex. docker-php:8.1
• (Major.Minor.Patch), optional. Semantically versioned container provisioning code. ex. docker-php:7.4-13.4.0.
• (-variant), optional. Alpine variants are slim versions of the container. ex. docker-php:7.4-alpine.

Includes

---

• Nginx HTTP server
• PHP / PHP-FPM: primary runtime
• S6: PID 1 zombie reaping, startup coordination, shutdown signal transferal. Nginx and PHP are preconfigured to shutdown as gracefully as possible.
• Goss: for serverspec-like testing. Run goss -g /tests/php-fpm/{PHP_MAJOR.PHP_MINOR}(-variant).goss.yaml to validate any configuration updates
• Ubuntu (default) or Alpine OS base
• Common PHP extensions:

For extension customization, including enabling and disabling defaults, see here

^ - not available on -alpine variant ~ - disabled by default

• apcu
• bcmath
• bz2
• calendar
• ctype
• curl
• date
• dom
• exif
• cgi-fcgi
• gd
• iconv
• igbinary
• intl
• json
• mbstring
• memcache ^
• memcached
• msgpack
• mysqli
• mysqlnd
• newrelic ~ (activates with env variables)
• opcache
• openssl
• pcntl
• pdo
• pdo_mysql
• pdo_pgsql ~
• pgsql ~
• phar
• posix
• redis ~
• shmop
• SimpleXML
• sockets
• sysvmsg
• sysvsem
• sysvshm
• tokenizer
• xdebug ~
• xml
• xmlreader
• xmlwriter
• yaml ~
• zip
• zlib

Expectations

---

Sample Dockerfile

FROM behance/docker-php:8.1

# (optional, recommended) Verify everything is in order from the parent
RUN goss -g /tests/php-fpm/8.1.goss.yaml validate && /aufs_hack.sh

# Layer local code into runtime
COPY ./ /app/

# Done!

• Local code should be copied into /app, for example: COPY ./ /app/

• Nginx is pre-configured to use a front controller PHP file (entrypoint) a front controller called index.php within a public folder. /app/public/index.php

• Dev Mode (no ENV variables): PHP's opcache is enabled, and is set to check files for updates. Code can be developed locally in Docker by mounting into the /app folder. For example, the docker-compose.yml syntax:

volumes:
   - ./:/app

• Production Mode [recommended]: using ENV variable, CFG_APP_DEBUG=0. Container becomes immutable, PHP's opcache is configured to not check files for updates.
• NOTE: Nginx is exposed and bound to an unprivileged port, 8080.

Monitoring

---

• NewRelic APM: automatically enabled by adding providing environment variables REPLACE_NEWRELIC_APP and REPLACE_NEWRELIC_LICENSE
• NewRelic Distributed Tracing: Before enabling distributed tracing be sure to read the transition guide. To enable this set NEWRELIC_TRACING_ENABLED to true.
• NewRelic Loglevel: you can override the NewRelic newrelic.loglevel and newrelic.daemon.loglevel config defaults (currently warning) to something more verbose for debugging purposes by setting environment variable NEWRELIC_LOGLEVEL to an available option (options include info, debug, verbosedebug)
• NewRelic Special: NewRelic has a newrelic.special config for special debug (sometimes requested by the NewRelic support team), you can turn that option on as directed by NewRelic support by setting enviroment variable NEWRELIC_SPECIAL to whatever value requested.
• PHP-FPM Status: available only inside container at /__status. Application healthcheck can pull PHP-FPM statistics from http://127.0.0.1/__status?json. To open to more clients than local, add more allow statements in __status location block in $CONF_NGINX_SITE(/etc/nginx/sites-available/default)
• Nginx Status: available only inside container at /__nginx_status. Application healthcheck can pull nginx statistics from http://127.0.0.1/__nginx_status. To open to more clients than local, add more allow statements in __nginx_status location block in $CONF_NGINX_SITE (/etc/nginx/sites-available/default)

Downstream Configuration

---

PHP Extensions

A variety of common extensions are included, and can be enabled or disabled as needed.

To enable a built-in and disabled extension:

On Ubuntu (default):

# phpenmod XXX

On Alpine variant:

# sed -i "s/^;ext/ext/" $CONF_PHPMODS/XXX.ini

To disable a built-in extension:

On Ubuntu (default):

# phpdismod XXX

On Alpine variant:

# sed -i "s/ext/;ext/" $CONF_PHPMODS/XXX.ini

Environment variables

Environment variables can be used to tune various PHP-FPM and Nginx parameters without baking them in.

See parent(s) for additional configuration options:

• docker-nginx
• docker-base

Variable	Example	Default	Description
(all)	DATABASE_HOST=master.rds.aws.com	-	PHP has access to environment variables by default
CFG_APP_DEBUG	CFG_APP_DEBUG=1	1	Setting to 1 or true will cue the Opcache to watch for file changes. Set to 0 for production mode, which provides a sizeable performance boost, though manually updating a file will not be seen unless the opcache is reset.
CFG_XDEBUG_ENABLE	CFG_XDEBUG_ENABLE=1	-	Setting to 1 or true will enable the XDebug extension, which is preconfigured to allow remote debugging as well as profiling. NOTE: Requires "dev" mode be enabled via CFG_APP_DEBUG.
SERVER_MAX_BODY_SIZE	SERVER_MAX_BODY_SIZE=4M	1M	Allows the downstream application to specify a non-default client_max_body_size configuration for the server-level directive in /etc/nginx/sites-available/default
SERVER_FASTCGI_BUFFERS	SERVER_FASTCGI_BUFFERS='512 32k'	256 16k	docs, tweaking
SERVER_FASTCGI_BUFFER_SIZE	SERVER_FASTCGI_BUFFER_SIZE='256k'	128k	docs, tweaking
SERVER_FASTCGI_BUSY_BUFFERS_SIZE	SERVER_FASTCGI_BUSY_BUFFERS_SIZE='1024k'	256k	docs
REPLACE_NEWRELIC_APP	REPLACE_NEWRELIC_APP=prod-server-abc	-	Sets application name for newrelic
REPLACE_NEWRELIC_LICENSE	REPLACE_NEWRELIC_LICENSE=abcdefg	-	Sets license for newrelic, when combined with above, will enable newrelic reporting
NEWRELIC_TRACING_ENABLED	NEWRELIC_TRACING_ENABLED=true	disabled	Sets transaction_tracer and distributed_tracing true for newrelic, when combined with above, will enable newrelic distributed tracing
NEWRELIC_LOGLEVEL	NEWRELIC_LOGLEVEL=verbosedebug	-	Overrides sane default loglevels for newrelic.loglevel and newrelic.daemon.loglevel (options include warning, info, debug, verbosedebug)
NEWRELIC_SPECIAL	NEWRELIC_SPECIAL=debug_autorum	-	Special NewRelic environment variable, for use with NewRelic support for when doing special debugging.
PHP_FPM_MEMORY_LIMIT	PHP_FPM_MEMORY_LIMIT=256M	192MB	Sets memory limit for FPM instances of PHP
PHP_FPM_MAX_EXECUTION_TIME	PHP_FPM_MAX_EXECUTION_TIME=30	60	Sets time limit for FPM workers
PHP_FPM_UPLOAD_MAX_FILESIZE	PHP_FPM_UPLOAD_MAX_FILESIZE=100M	1M	Sets both upload_max_filesize and post_max_size
PHP_FPM_MAX_CHILDREN	PHP_FPM_MAX_CHILDREN=15	4096	docs
PHP_FPM_START_SERVERS	PHP_FPM_START_SERVERS=40	20	docs
PHP_FPM_MAX_REQUESTS	PHP_FPM_MAX_REQUESTS=100	1024	docs How many requests an individual FPM worker will process before recycling
PHP_FPM_MIN_SPARE_SERVERS	PHP_FPM_MIN_SPARE_SERVERS=10	5	docs
PHP_OPCACHE_MEMORY_CONSUMPTION	PHP_OPCACHE_MEMORY_CONSUMPTION=512	128	docs
PHP_OPCACHE_MAX_WASTED_PERCENTAGE	PHP_OPCACHE_MAX_WASTED_PERCENTAGE=10	5	docs
PHP_OPCACHE_INTERNED_STRINGS_BUFFER	PHP_OPCACHE_INTERNED_STRINGS_BUFFER=64	16	docs
PHP_OPCACHE_FILE_CACHE	PHP_OPCACHE_FILE_CACHE=/tmp	-	docs
PHP_OPCACHE_ENABLE_CLI	PHP_OPCACHE_ENABLE_CLI=0	1	docs
PHP_OPCACHE_PRELOAD	PHP_OPCACHE_PRELOAD=/etc/php/preload.php	-	docs
PHP_FPM_LOG_LIMIT	PHP_FPM_LOG_LIMIT=4096	1024	PHP 7.3+ only, allows configurable stdout message max length docs
PHP_FPM_LOG_BUFFERING	PHP_FPM_LOG_BUFFERING=no	yes	PHP 7.3+ only docs

Testing

---

• Requires bash, docker, and dgoss (link)

To test locally, run PHP_VARIANT=8.1 ./test.sh {docker engine IP}.

This will:

• Build a single container PHP_VARIANT (ex. 7.4-alpine, 7.4, 8.0, 8.1)
• Leverages Goss to confirm package, config, and extension installation
• Validates a large file upload
• Boots container with specific NewRelic configuration overrides

Release Management

Github actions provide the machinery for testing (ci.yaml) and producing tags distributed through Docker Hub (publish.yaml). Testing will confirm that nginx is able to serve content in various configurations, but also that it can terminate TLS with self-signed certificates. Once a tested and approved PR is merged, simply cutting a new semantically-versioned tag will generate the a matrix of tagged builds. See Container tag scheme above.

Platform support is available for multiple architectures:

• linux/amd64: Ubuntu and Alpine variants
• linux/arm64: Ubuntu variants-only

To add new variant based on a new Dockerfile, add an entry to matrix.props within ./github/workflows YAML files.

Github Actions: Simulation

docker-nginx uses Github Actions for CI/CD. Simulated workflows can be achieved locally with act. All commands must be executes from repository root.

Pre-reqs: tested on Mac

1. Docker Desktop
2. act

Pull request simulation: executes successfully, but only on ARM devices (ex. Apple M1). ARM emulation through QEMU on X64 machines does not implement the full kernel functionality required by nginx at this time.

• act pull_request

Publish simulation: executes, but fails (intentionally) without credentials

• act