Run multiple WordPress Docker containers with NGINX Proxy, LetsEncrypt and PHP Composer

Each WordPress site runs its own container and is proxied by an NGINX Proxy that handles SSL thanks to LetsEncrypt. This setup relies on https://github.com/jwilder/nginx-proxy and https://github.com/JrCs/docker-letsencrypt-nginx-proxy-companion

Requirements

• Docker
• Docker Compose

NGINX Proxy and LetsEncrypt

Run docker-compose up -d in the nginx directory to start the NGINX Proxy and LetsEncrypt Proxy Companion containers. These containers will handle https.

WordPress Setup

• Copy the wordpress01 directory for each WordPress site you want to host. I created a copy called wordpress02 as an example. If you only want to host one site you can delete wordpress02 and modify wordpress01 to your liking.

• In each site directory is a sample.env - copy that file, edit the environment variables and

• Make sure that the container names are unique for each site. (DBCONTAINER, WPCONTAINER and COMPOSER_CONTAINER).
• I recommend highly choosing different database credentials for each site.
• Make optional changes to wp-config.php
• The wp-content folder is mounted locally to /srv/www/${VIRTUALHOST}/wpcontent for

• Database files are mounted here: /srv/www/${VIRTUALHOST}/dbdata

Custom Theme & Plugin Development

• You can develop a custom theme in wordpress_XX/theme or a custom plugin in

Composer

Add plugins and/or theme dependencies to wordpress_XX/composer/composer.json They will be installed by the composer container on docker-compose up --build I've added common plugins from https://wpackagist.org/ repository as an example.

arbitrary
{
    "name": "wordpress-docker-composer",
    "description": "WordPress Docker & Composer Setup",
    "repositories":[
        {
            "type":"composer",
            "url":"https://wpackagist.org"
        }
    ],
    "require": {
        "wpackagist-plugin/wordpress-seo":"*",
        "wpackagist-plugin/wp-super-cache":"*"
    }
}

Build and run containers.

For each site navigate to its directory and:

`docker-compose up --build

For local development set the values of VIRTUALHOSTand LETSENCRYPTHOST environment variables to a arbitrary domain. (e.g. my-wordpress.com) and set LETSENCRYPT_TEST to true. Make sure to use a valid domain ending and to add the domain to your hosts file. On Linux or MacOS add this line 127.0.0.1 my-wordpress.com to /etc/hosts and restart the browser. On Windows the hosts file is located here - C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts`