Docker Container Define user home folder - php

Question

I have the following php service in docker-compse.yml
version: '3'
networks:
laravel:
driver: bridge
services:
nginx:
image: nginx:stable-alpine
restart: unless-stopped
ports:
- "${WEB_PORT}:80"
volumes:
- "${PROJECT_DIR}:/var/www/html"
- "${NGINX_CONFIG}:/etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf"
- ./docker/nginx/nginx.conf:/etc/nginx/nginx.conf
depends_on:
- php
- mysql
networks:
- laravel
mysql:
image: mysql:5.7.29
restart: unless-stopped
user: "${HOST_UID}:${HOST_GID}"
tty: true
ports:
- "${SQL_PORT}:3306"
environment:
MYSQL_DATABASE: ${MYSQL_DATABASE}
MYSQL_USER: ${MYSQL_USER}
MYSQL_PASSWORD: ${MYSQL_PASSWORD}
MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: ${MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD}
SERVICE_TAGS: dev
SERVICE_NAME: mysql
volumes:
- ./docker/mysql:/var/lib/mysql
networks:
- laravel
php:
build:
context: ./docker
dockerfile: Dockerfile-php
user: "${HOST_UID}:${HOST_GID}"
volumes:
- "${PROJECT_DIR}:/var/www/html"
- ./docker/php/php.ini:/usr/local/etc/php/php.ini
#- "${COMPOSER_CACHE_DIR}:/.composer/cache"
#- "${COMPOSER_CONFIG}:/.composer/config"
working_dir: /var/www/html
networks:
- laravel
npm:
image: node:13.7
user: "${HOST_UID}:${HOST_GID}"
volumes:
- "${PROJECT_DIR}:/var/www/html"
working_dir: /var/www/html
entrypoint: ['npm']
When I run whoami in the container, it returns:
whoami: cannot find name for user ID 1000
I think this is a problem because there is no home directory, docker-compose exec php ls ~ returns:
ls: cannot access '/home/clarg': No such file or directory
This then leads to docker-compose exec php php artisan tinker returning:
ErrorException
Writing to directory /.config/psysh is not allowed.
at vendor/psy/psysh/src/ConfigPaths.php:362
358▕ #\mkdir($dir, 0700, true);
359▕ }
360▕
361▕ if (!\is_dir($dir) || !\is_writable($dir)) {
➜ 362▕ \trigger_error(\sprintf('Writing to directory %s is not allowed.', $dir), \E_USER_NOTICE);
363▕
364▕ return false;
365▕ }
366▕
+20 vendor frames
21 artisan:37
Illuminate\Foundation\Console\Kernel::handle(Object(Symfony\Component\Console\Input\ArgvInput), Object(Symfony\Component\Console\Output\ConsoleOutput))
From googling, I see this is in the home directory, which does not exist in the container.
How can I solve this?
EDIT:
Dockerfile-php:
FROM php:8.0-fpm
ADD https://github.com/mlocati/docker-php-extension-installer/releases/latest/download/install-php-extensions /usr/local/bin/
RUN chmod +x /usr/local/bin/install-php-extensions && \
install-php-extensions gd zip pdo_mysql
# check https://github.com/mlocati/docker-php-extension-installer#supported-php-extensions for more extensions
COPY --from=composer /usr/bin/composer /usr/bin/composer
php.ini
https://pastebin.com/T2iYTZz2

Answer 1

Your docker containers don't have any knowledge of the users that may or may not exist on the host machine, so unless you've built those in with their accompanying config and directory structure the only thing you're getting out of feeding docker your local UID and GID is "running the container as something other than root", which is good.
But generally you don't want to tie a docker container/image to the particular environment that it is launched from, eg: requiring a user with the same name as your local user exist within the container, plus all of its associated directories and such.
In this specific case it looks like artisan just wants to cache some config, and you can control where that lands with the environment variable:
XDG_CONFIG_HOME=/some/writeable/directory
Which you could set in the Dockerfile, docker-compose, or .env file of your project. I would suggest setting it to somewhere in your project directory, but outside of the docroot.
Ref: https://stackoverflow.com/a/62041096/1064767
This is well enough for local dev where you want to mount in your local work dir for testing, but will likely need a bit more consideration if you're going to build/deploy a final docker image.