How to correctly link php-fpm and Nginx Docker containers?

Question

I am trying to link 2 separate containers:

• nginx:latest
• php:fpm

The problem is that php scripts do not work. Perhaps the php-fpm config

Answer 1

As previous answers have solved for, but should be stated very explicitly: the php code needs to live in the php-fpm container, while the static files need to live in the nginx container. For simplicity, most people have just attached all the code to both, as I have also done below. If the future, I will likely separate out these different parts of the code in my own projects as to minimize which containers have access to which parts.

Updated my example files below with this latest revelation (thank you @alkaline )

This seems to be the minimum setup for docker 2.0 forward (because things got a lot easier in docker 2.0)

docker-compose.yml:

version: '2'
services:
  php:
    container_name: test-php
    image: php:fpm
    volumes:
      - ./code:/var/www/html/site
  nginx:
    container_name: test-nginx
    image: nginx:latest
    volumes:
      - ./code:/var/www/html/site
      - ./site.conf:/etc/nginx/conf.d/site.conf:ro
    ports:
      - 80:80

(UPDATED the docker-compose.yml above: For sites that have css, javascript, static files, etc, you will need those files accessible to the nginx container. While still having all the php code accessible to the fpm container. Again, because my base code is a messy mix of css, js, and php, this example just attaches all the code to both containers)

In the same folder:

site.conf:

server
{
    listen   80;
    server_name site.local.[YOUR URL].com;

    root /var/www/html/site;
    index index.php;

    location /
    {
        try_files $uri =404;
    }

    location ~ \.php$ {
        fastcgi_pass   test-php:9000;
        fastcgi_index  index.php;
        fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME  $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        include        fastcgi_params;
    }
}

In folder code:

./code/index.php:

<?php
phpinfo();

and don't forget to update your hosts file:

127.0.0.1 site.local.[YOUR URL].com

and run your docker-compose up

$docker-compose up -d

and try the URL from your favorite browser

site.local.[YOUR URL].com/index.php