Laravel w/ Docker - Safe for production? - php

Question

I recently spun up a Laravel / Docker environment by following this digitalocean tutorial, and was just wondering if anybody sees any concerns with using this in a production environment? If there are concerns, could you perhaps explain why they are a concern and what I can do to circumvent them?
I would have asked the question in the tutorial comments instead, but that never gets enough visibility.
EDIT: Here are the docker-compose.yml, Dockerfile and .env files, just so you have a little more context without having to visit the tutorial. Let me know if you need anything else.
docker-compose.yml:
version: '3'
services:
#PHP Service
app:
build:
context: .
dockerfile: .docker/Dockerfile
image: digitalocean.com/php
container_name: app
restart: unless-stopped
tty: true
environment:
SERVICE_NAME: app
SERVICE_TAGS: dev
working_dir: /var/www
volumes:
- ./:/var/www
- ./.docker/php/local.ini:/usr/local/etc/php/conf.d/local.ini
networks:
- app-network
#Nginx Service
webserver:
image: nginx:alpine
container_name: webserver
restart: unless-stopped
tty: true
ports:
- "80:80"
- "443:443"
volumes:
- ./:/var/www
- ./.docker/nginx/conf.d/:/etc/nginx/conf.d/
networks:
- app-network
#MySQL Service
db:
image: mysql:5.7.22
container_name: db
restart: unless-stopped
tty: true
ports:
- "3306:3306"
environment:
MYSQL_DATABASE: laravel
MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: laravel_root_password
SERVICE_TAGS: dev
SERVICE_NAME: mysql
volumes:
- dbdata:/var/lib/mysql/
- ./.docker/mysql/my.cnf:/etc/mysql/my.cnf
networks:
- app-network
#Docker Networks
networks:
app-network:
driver: bridge
#Volumes
volumes:
dbdata:
driver: local
Dockerfile:
FROM php:7.2-fpm
# Copy composer.lock and composer.json
COPY composer.lock composer.json /var/www/
# Set working directory
WORKDIR /var/www
# Install dependencies
RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y \
build-essential \
default-mysql-client \
libpng-dev \
libjpeg62-turbo-dev \
libfreetype6-dev \
locales \
zip \
jpegoptim optipng pngquant gifsicle \
nano \
unzip \
git \
curl
# Clear cache
RUN apt-get clean && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
# */
# Install extensions
RUN docker-php-ext-install pdo_mysql mbstring zip exif pcntl
RUN docker-php-ext-configure gd --with-gd --with-freetype-dir=/usr/include/ --with-jpeg-dir=/usr/include/ --with-png-dir=/usr/include/
RUN docker-php-ext-install gd
# Install composer
RUN curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php -- --install-dir=/usr/local/bin --filename=composer
# Add user for laravel application
RUN groupadd -g 1000 www
RUN useradd -u 1000 -ms /bin/bash -g www www
# Copy existing application directory contents
COPY . /var/www
# Copy existing application directory permissions
COPY --chown=www:www . /var/www
# Change current user to www
USER www
# Expose port 9000 and start php-fpm server
EXPOSE 9000
CMD ["php-fpm"]
.env:
APP_NAME=Laravel
APP_ENV=production
APP_KEY=base64:000/000000000000000000000000000000000000000=
APP_DEBUG=true
APP_URL=http://example.com
LOG_CHANNEL=stack
DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=db
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=laravel
DB_USERNAME=laraveluser
DB_PASSWORD=your_laravel_db_password
BROADCAST_DRIVER=log
CACHE_DRIVER=file
QUEUE_CONNECTION=sync
SESSION_DRIVER=file
SESSION_LIFETIME=120
REDIS_HOST=127.0.0.1
REDIS_PASSWORD=null
REDIS_PORT=6379

Answer 1

About a year ago, I deployed a Laravel app using Docker on an Ubuntu host. We've had no issues. Having a homogeneous environment eases team development and has helped streamline continuous deployment.
The production docker environment includes:
PHP
NGINX
MySQL
Redis
Additionally, the local docker environment includes:
Mailhog
A 'toolbox' that includes npm, mysql-client and other tools that would make things more convenient for the team.
There's a chance you'll want different docker-compose configurations for development vs. production. You can manage this by creating a docker-compose.prod.yml file and have your CD pipeline overwrite docker-compose.yml with the prod version upon deployment.
Or, if no CD is in place, you could use a docker-compose.dev.yml file to overwrite production values and add new configurations.
Then run
docker-compose up -d -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.dev.yml
Good luck!