/docker-nginx

Docker image for Nginx, to be used in combination with dylanlindgren/docker-phpfpm

Primary LanguageNginxMIT LicenseMIT

Docker & Nginx

docker-nginx is a CentOS-based docker container for Nginx. It is intended for use with dylanlindgren/docker-phpfpm.

Nginx 1.6.1 is compiled from source with the below modules enabled:

  • http_gzip_static_module
  • http_stub_status_module
  • http_ssl_module - for HTTPS support
  • http_spdy_module
  • pcre
  • http_image_filter_module
  • file-aio
  • ipv6
  • http_dav_module
  • http_flv_module
  • http_mp4_module
  • http_gunzip_module
  • spnego-http-auth-nginx-module - for Kerberos authentication

Getting the image

This image is published in the Docker Hub. Simply run the below command to get it on your machine:

docker pull dylanlindgren/docker-nginx

Alternatively you can clone this repository and build the image using the docker build command.

Nginx site config and www data

All site and log data is configured to be located in a Docker volume so that it is persistent and can be shared by other containers (such as PHP-FPM, or a backup container).

There are two volumes defined in this image:

  • /data/nginx/www
  • /data/nginx/config

Within these folders this image expects the below directory structure:

/data
└────nginx
     ├─── www
     |    ├─── website1_files
     |    |    └  ...
     |    └─── website2_files
     |         └  ...
     └─── config
          ├─── logs
          |    └  ...
          └─── sites
               ├─── available
               |    |  website1
               |    |  website2
               |    └  ...
               └─── enabled
                    |  website1_symlink
                    └  ...

PHP-FPM requires access to the www directory in the same location as Nginx has it, so instead of mounting /data/nginx/www in this container, we will mount it in the PHP-FPM container and use the --volumes-from switch (as due to the --link command the PHP-FPM container needs to be run first anyway).

The available and enabled directories under /data/nginx/config/sites both operate in the same fashion as the regular sites-available and sites-enabled directories in Nginx - that is, put your website config files all in the available directory and create symlinks to these files in the enabled directory with the below command (after cding into the enabled directory).

ln -s ../available/website1 website1

Each of the files under the /data/nginx/config/sites/available directory should contain a definition for a Nginx server. For example:

server {
    listen       80;
    server_name  www.website1.com;
    root              /data/www/website1_files/public;

    location ~* \.(html|jpg|jpeg|gif|png|css|js|ico|xml)$ {
        access_log        off;
        log_not_found     off;
        expires           360d;
    }

    location ~* \.php$ {
        include fastcgi.conf;
        fastcgi_pass phpfpm_backend;
    }
}

Creating and running the container

NOTE: a container based on dylanlindgren/docker-phpfpm must be created before running the below steps. In the below commands, this container is referred to as phpfpm.

To create and run the container:

docker run --privileged=true -p 80:80 -p 443:443 --name nginx -v /data/nginx/config:/data/nginx/config:rw --volumes-from phpfpm --link phpfpm:fpm -d dylanlindgren/docker-nginx
  • the first -p maps the container's port 80 to port 80 on the host, the second maps the container's 443 to the hosts 443.
  • --name sets the name of the container (useful when starting/stopping).
  • -v maps the /data/nginx/config folder as read/write (rw).
  • --volumes-from gets volumes from the phpfpm container (it should have /data/nginx/www mapped)
  • --link allows this container and the phpfpm container to talk to each other over IP.
  • -d runs the container as a daemon

To stop the container:

docker stop nginx

To start the container again:

docker start nginx

Running as a Systemd service

To run this container as a service on a Systemd based distro (e.g. CentOS 7), create a unit file under /etc/systemd/system called nginx.service with the below contents

[Unit]
Description=Nginx Docker container (dylanlindgren/docker-nginx)
After=docker.service
After=phpfpm.service
Requires=docker.service
Requires=phpfpm.service

[Service]
TimeoutStartSec=0
ExecStartPre=-/usr/bin/docker stop nginx
ExecStartPre=-/usr/bin/docker rm nginx
ExecStartPre=-/usr/bin/docker pull dylanlindgren/docker-nginx
ExecStart=/usr/bin/docker run --privileged=true -p 80:80 -p 443:443 --name nginx -v /data/nginx/config:/data/nginx/config:rw --volumes-from phpfpm --link phpfpm:fpm dylanlindgren/docker-nginx
ExecStop=/usr/bin/docker stop nginx

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Then you can start/stop/restart the container with the regular Systemd commands e.g. systemctl start nginx.service.

To automatically start the container when you restart enable the unit file with the command systemctl enable nginx.service.

Something to note is that this service is set to require phpfpm.service which is a service which runs the php-fpm container made with dylanlindgren/docker-phpfpm.

Acknowledgements

The below pages were very useful in the creation of both of these projects.