Combining PHP-fpm with nginx in one dockerfile

Question

I have a need to combine the php-fpm with nginx in one dockerfile for production deployment.

So is it better to :

(1) Start the dockerfile using php:7.1.8-f

Answer 1

Nginx installation is much easier than PHP so it should be easier for you to install Nginx into ready-to-use official PHP image. Here is the example Dockerfile showing how your goal can be reached with example of installing few PHP extensions:

FROM php:7.2-fpm

RUN apt-get update -y \
    && apt-get install -y nginx

# PHP_CPPFLAGS are used by the docker-php-ext-* scripts
ENV PHP_CPPFLAGS="$PHP_CPPFLAGS -std=c++11"

RUN docker-php-ext-install pdo_mysql \
    && docker-php-ext-install opcache \
    && apt-get install libicu-dev -y \
    && docker-php-ext-configure intl \
    && docker-php-ext-install intl \
    && apt-get remove libicu-dev icu-devtools -y
RUN { \
        echo 'opcache.memory_consumption=128'; \
        echo 'opcache.interned_strings_buffer=8'; \
        echo 'opcache.max_accelerated_files=4000'; \
        echo 'opcache.revalidate_freq=2'; \
        echo 'opcache.fast_shutdown=1'; \
        echo 'opcache.enable_cli=1'; \
    } > /usr/local/etc/php/conf.d/php-opocache-cfg.ini

COPY nginx-site.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default
COPY entrypoint.sh /etc/entrypoint.sh

COPY --chown=www-data:www-data . /var/www/mysite

WORKDIR /var/www/mysite

EXPOSE 80 443

ENTRYPOINT ["/etc/entrypoint.sh"]

The nginx-site.conf file contain your nginx http host configuration. The example below is for Symfony app:

server {
    root    /var/www/mysite/web;

    include /etc/nginx/default.d/*.conf;

    index app.php index.php index.html index.htm;

    client_max_body_size 30m;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /app.php$is_args$args;
    }

    location ~ [^/]\.php(/|$) {
        fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+?\.php)(/.*)$;
        # Mitigate https://httpoxy.org/ vulnerabilities
        fastcgi_param HTTP_PROXY "";
        fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
        fastcgi_index app.php;
        include fastcgi.conf;
    }
}

The entrypoint.sh will run nginx and php-fpm on container startup (otherwise only php-fpm will be started as the default action of the official PHP image):

#!/usr/bin/env bash
service nginx start
php-fpm

Of course this is not a best way from the best practice perspective, but I hope this is the answer for your question.