Dockerize any laravel application easily

I started using Docker very recently with my open-source projects especially for local development and was amazed at how effective and efficient it is. I also used Docker to deploy my wordpress website/blog on Hetzner and it literally costs me just $8/month (can go down to $4 if you use a slightly less powerful server).

So if you are looking to dockerize your Laravel application you could use the yml file below to get started.

This is going to be super easy. Stay tuned!

We are going to look at setting up Docker containers for the following services and structuring our Laravel app.

PostgreSQL DB
Nginx
php-fpm
Running tests
npm
Supervisord for background jobs
Laravel scheduler for cron jobs

This list is pretty much what I use for my projects.

Lets first create our project folder, you can name this anything but this is what we’d be committing to our git account.

I use a Mac and I have a folder called dockerapps created in the below path

(base) madhu@Madhukars-MacBook-Air dockerapps % pwd
/Users/madhu/Documents/dockerapps
(base) madhu@Madhukars-MacBook-Air dockerapps %

I am now going to create my project named “laravel_docker”

(base) madhu@Madhukars-MacBook-Air dockerapps % mkdir laravel_docker
(base) madhu@Madhukars-MacBook-Air dockerapps % ls
laravel_docker	myblog		seasonsurvey
(base) madhu@Madhukars-MacBook-Air dockerapps %

Since this is the file I am going to commit to git, I will initialize a git repo in it

(base) madhu@Madhukars-MacBook-Air dockerapps % cd laravel_docker 
(base) madhu@Madhukars-MacBook-Air laravel_docker % git init
Initialized empty Git repository in /Users/madhu/Documents/dockerapps/laravel_docker/.git/

Now lets create a laravel project called “src” inside laravel_docker directory, this is where we will create our laravel application code will reside

(base) madhu@Madhukars-MacBook-Air laravel_docker % mkdir src
(base) madhu@Madhukars-MacBook-Air laravel_docker % cd src 
(base) madhu@Madhukars-MacBook-Air src %

I will create a jetstream project but you can go with whatever you want.

This is how your source directory looks like

(base) madhu@Madhukars-MacBook-Air laravel_docker % cd src 
(base) madhu@Madhukars-MacBook-Air src % pwd
/Users/madhu/Documents/dockerapps/laravel_docker/src
(base) madhu@Madhukars-MacBook-Air src % ls
README.md		bootstrap		config			node_modules		phpunit.xml		resources		tailwind.config.js	vite.config.js
app			composer.json		database		package-lock.json	postcss.config.js	routes			tests
artisan			composer.lock		jsconfig.json		package.json		public			storage			vendor
(base) madhu@Madhukars-MacBook-Air src %

Now that you have the application, lets start dockerizing the app.

Got to “laravel_docker” folder (whatever you named your project), it will look like so

(base) madhu@Madhukars-MacBook-Air laravel_docker % ls
src
(base) madhu@Madhukars-MacBook-Air laravel_docker %

Create a file called docker-compose.yml file

inside the file, copy and paste the below content

version: '3.8'

networks:
  seasonsurvey:
    name: seasonsurvey
services:
  postgres:
    image: postgres:14.12
    container_name: postgres
    restart: always
    networks:
      - seasonsurvey
    ports:
      - 5433:5432
    volumes:
      - ./postgresql/data:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    environment:
      - POSTGRES_DB=seasonsurvey
      - POSTGRES_USER=postgres
      - POSTGRES_PASSWORD=password

  php:
    build:
      context: .
      dockerfile: php.dockerfile
    container_name: php
    restart: always
    volumes:
      - ./src:/var/www/html
    networks:
      - seasonsurvey
  nginx:
    build:
      context: .
      dockerfile: nginx.dockerfile
    container_name: nginx
    restart: always
    depends_on:
      - php
      - postgres
    networks:
      - seasonsurvey
    ports:
      - 80:80
    volumes:
      - ./src:/var/www/html

  composer:
    image: composer:latest
    container_name: composer
    volumes:
      - ./src:/var/www/html
    working_dir: /var/www/html
    networks:
      - seasonsurvey

  llama31:
    image: ilopezluna/llama3.1:0.3.11-8b
    container_name: llama
    networks:
      - seasonsurvey
    ports:
      - 11435:11434

  artisan:
    build:
      context: .
      dockerfile: php.dockerfile
    container_name: artisan
    volumes:
      - ./src:/var/www/html
    working_dir: /var/www/html
    entrypoint: ["php", "artisan"]
    networks:
      - seasonsurvey
  npm:
    image: node:current-alpine
    container_name: npm
    ports:
      - 5173:5173
    volumes:
      - ./src:/var/www/html
    working_dir: /var/www/html
    entrypoint: ['npm']
    networks:
      - seasonsurvey
  runtests:
    build:
      context: .
      dockerfile: php.dockerfile
    container_name: runtests
    volumes:
      - ./src:/var/www/html
    working_dir: /var/www/html
    entrypoint: ["php", "artisan", "test"]
    networks:
      - seasonsurvey

  scheduler:
    build:
      context: .
      dockerfile: php.dockerfile
    container_name: scheduler
    restart: always
    volumes:
      - ./src:/var/www/html
    working_dir: /var/www/html
    entrypoint: ["php", "artisan", "schedule:work"]
    networks:
      - seasonsurvey
  supervisord:
    build:
      context: .
      dockerfile: supervisord.dockerfile
    container_name: supervisord
    restart: always
    depends_on:
      - nginx
      - php
      - postgres
      - scheduler
    volumes:
      - ./src:/var/www/html
    working_dir: /var/www/html
    networks:
      - seasonsurvey

Now,