CakePHP 3 with Docker on Ubuntu 16.04

Dear friends,
i played around with Docker for a while now and wanted to share my approach to setup CakePHP 3 within Docker containers running PHP with Apache and MySQL.

I hope this repository might help some of you get started. Please read this file carefully. I'll explain step by step what to do :)

Requirements

• Done with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
• Docker with docker-compose

Hint (A little control kickin)

This is just FYI if you want to know the differences on how to work with the containers.

exec is used in this case because we want to run commands on already running containers.

If you are inside the containers bash you can use commands like this:

• php -v
• ls /usr/local/lib/php/extensions

Otherwise you can do the equivalent when not inside the container bash with:

• docker-compose exec php php -v
• docker-compose exec php ls /usr/local/lib/php/extensions

The name of the container matches the name of the service in your docker-compose.yml.
docker-compose exec SERVICENAME COMMAND

It is also possible to use the docker command instead like this:

• docker exec php-5-cake3 php -v
• docker exec php-5-cake3 ls /usr/local/lib/php/extensions

The name of the container matches the name generated when running the containers.
docker exec CONTAINERNAME COMMAND

however there is a slight difference when trying to access the bash:

• docker-compose exec php bash
• docker exec -ti php-5-cake3 bash

It is necessary to use the -ti argument when using docker to start an interactive terminal mode.
docker-compose does that for you automatically.

Check out the docs of the exec commands of both if you want to learn more.

Adjust your virtual host domain

• Open the apache-config.conf file in the root directory.
• Change: ServerName "YOUR-NAME.local" to the domain you want to use for development
• Edit your hosts file on your machine
  • Locate the file at: /etc/hosts
  • Open it with a file editor (You need root privilegs to edit this file)
  • Search for this line: 127.0.0.1 localhost
  • Change it to this: 127.0.0.1 localhost YOUR-NAME.local
  • Save the file. That should be it :)

Installation of CakePHP

• Start terminal in the root directory
• docker-compose up --build -d
• docker-compose exec php composer create-project --prefer-dist cakephp/app app
• sudo chmod 0777 -R app

If there is a better way than chmod here please let me know. For development cases it's good enough in my case.

How to use Composer and install PHPUnit

• docker-compose exec php bash
• cd app
• composer require --dev phpunit/phpunit:"^5.7"
• composer test

This isn't necessary if you don't need Unit/Functional Tests. Maybe you should consider Tests anyway ;)

Check if XDebug is available

• php -v or docker-compose exec php php -v

The output should be something like that:

PHP 5.6.30 (cli) (built: Jul 4 2017 04:28:04)
Copyright (c) 1997-2016 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v2.6.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2016 Zend Technologies
with Xdebug v2.5.5, Copyright (c) 2002-2017, by Derick Rethans

If XDebug is not available check the php extension path

• ls /usr/local/lib/php/extensions
• docker-compose exec php ls /usr/local/lib/php/extensions

The output should be something like that:

no-debug-non-zts-20131226

Open the docker-php-ext-xdebug.ini in the root directory and replace the bold part with the correct name:

zend_extension=/usr/local/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20131226/xdebug.so

Rebuild the image with docker-compose build

What's next?

Start developing!

You can start and stop your containers with these commands:

• To start: docker-compose up -d
• To stop: docker-compose down
• Check running containers: docker-compose ps

It is necessary to be in the directory where your docker-compose.yml file is located. Otherwise docker-compose won't work!

Final words

Please don't hestitate to improve this repository by sending Pull Requests. I would much appreciate any help.

I hope you enjoy this setup process. Have fun with CakePHP!