WordPress development on Docker [DEPRECATED]

NOTE: This image is no longer updated. It was created when the official WordPress image was still young and had a number of issues that made local development frustrating. These issues have since been addressed.

It can still be useful as an example of how to extend the official image and especially as an example of how to install Xdebug.

In general, however, I recommend that you work instead from the official WordPress images, as shown in my Docker Compose WordPress development repo.

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Environment variables

• WORDPRESS_ACTIVATE_PLUGINS: A space-separated list of plugin paths relative to /var/www/html/wp-content/plugins/ that should be activated when the container starts. If a plugin cannot be found, an install will be attempted via wp plugin install.

• WORDPRESS_ACTIVATE_THEME A theme path relative to /var/www/html/wp-content/themes/ that should be activated when the container starts. If the theme cannot be found, an install will be attempted via wp theme install.

• WORDPRESS_CONFIG_EXTRA: Additional PHP to append to wp-config.php.

• WORDPRESS_DB_HOST: Default "mysql".

• WORDPRESS_DB_NAME: Default "wordpress".

• WORDPRESS_DB_USER: Default "root".

• WORDPRESS_DB_PASSWORD: Default "".

• WORDPRESS_INSTALL_TYPE: Default "single" (use "multisite" for Multisite install).

• WORDPRESS_PERMALINK_STRUCTURE: Default "/%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%/"

• WORDPRESS_SITE_USER: Default "wordpress"

• WORDPRESS_SITE_PASSWORD: Default "wordpress"

• WORDPRESS_SITE_EMAIL: Default "admin@example.com"

• WORDPRESS_SITE_TITLE: Default "Project".

• WORDPRESS_SITE_URL: Default "http://project.dev".

WP-CLI

Assuming you are running in the context of Docker Compose:

docker-compose exec --user www-data wordpress wp [command]

Running tests (PHPUnit)

Previous versions of this image provided PHPUnit inside the container. However, bundling a single version of PHPUnit was not very flexible. Additionally, users did not have the opportunity to install their own test dependencies. I now provide a(n optional) separate PHPUnit WordPress container that provides much greater flexibility and isolation. Please see the README of my Docker Compose WordPress development repo for instructions on how to set this up.

Xdebug

Xdebug is installed but needs the IP of your local machine to connect to your local debugging client. Edit .env and populate the DOCKER_LOCAL_IP environment variable with your machine's (local network) IP address. The default idekey is xdebug.

XDEBUG_CONFIG: "remote_host=x.x.x.x idekey=xdebug"

You can enable profiling by appending additional instructions, e.g.:

XDEBUG_CONFIG: "remote_host=x.x.x.x idekey=xdebug profiler_enable=1 profiler_output_name=%R.%t.out"

This will output cachegrind files (named after the request URI and timestamp) to /tmp inside the WordPress container.

Seed wp-content

You can seed wp-content with files (e.g., an uploads folder) by mounting a volume at /tmp/wordpress/init-wp-content. Everything in that folder will be copied to your installation's wp-content folder.

Provide trusted root certificates

Mount a folder of trusted root certificates to /tmp/certs. Any files in that folder with a .crt extension will be added to the trusted certificate store.