This image is intended to create a local Laravel environment for development (only) and can be used either for a from-scratch project or to run an older Laravel project.

• Create a project directory and clone the repository:

mkdir myAppName
cd myAppName
git clone [email protected]:neosmic/docker-laravel-builder.git
cd docker-laravel-builder
mv .env.example .env

• Open .env file and set (or keep in mind) needed environment variables, such as Time Zone and Database connection settings.
• Then build and compose up:

docker compose build 
docker compose up

• Generated tree:

═ applicationName
  ╠ docker-laravelbuilder
  ╚  ╦ .env
     ╠ Dockerfile
     ╠ ... 
  ╚ myapp
     ╠ .env
     ╠ <LaravelFiles>...

• Inside the new directory created by docker compose (myapp) you will find the project's files for Laravel including .env file for database and other environment variables.
• Set database variables if needed.
• For using the MySQL dbserver service container you should just update connection settings in .env Laravel file:

DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=dbserver
DB_PORT="${DB_SERVER_PORT}"
DB_DATABASE="${MYSQL_DATABASE}"
DB_USERNAME="${MYSQL_USER}"
DB_PASSWORD="${MYSQL_PASSWORD}"

• For testing Laravel conection to database just get into the container by: docker exec -it docker-laravel-builder-backend-1 bash and type: php artisan migrate, and, if everything is ok it should show the migration execution.

You must convert .env.example file into .env file to properly load Environment Variables into containers before building the image.

If you need more variables to be loaded during the building process you must add them into .env file and beside the first lines of the Dockerfile. Otherwise, if you need them only for execution time, feel free to just add them to .env file.

If you want to load variables into .env Laravel file you can load them by "${MY_ENV_VAR}" declared in .env beside the Dockerfile

Building process only can be done with full docker compose up --build. It can not be done cleanly with docker build . because it brokes the environment variables load.

• This repo can create a subdirectory called dbfiles to save database files for persistence. If you don't need such persistence, please comment lines into docker-compose.yaml file:

    volumes:
      - ./dbfiles:/var/lib/mysql

• If you prefer, you can use a docker volume:

    volumes:
      - dockerVolDb:/var/lib/mysql
volumes:
   dockerVolDb:

• The project files will be created outside of this repo's files (to avoid conflicts with Laravel repo created) and will take the name from the Environment Variable called APP_NAME inside .env file

• For first scaffolding just build with docker compose build --no-cache.
• Then docker compose up until docker creates all the files and run the built in server.
• CTRL + C to stop the server, and docker compose down
• Into Dockerfile uncomment the line USER 1000:www-data
• Then re-run docker compose build --no-cache.
• Run docker compose up -d.
• Now you can edit your files directly from your app directory created.
• Don't forget to add the DB configurations into .env file of your project.

• Place your Laravel files into application_name directory and uncomment the line USER 1000:www-data into Dockerfile.
• Then re-build with: docker compose build --no-cache
• Run docker compose up -d.
• Now you will be able to edit files from your app directory.
• Don't forget to add the DB configurations into .env file of your project.

Note: If you don't uncomment line USER 1000:www-data into Dockerfile, you wont be able to edit files created inside the container unless you are specifically the root user.