[Howto]: Symlink or mount alternate project directories, Docker Desktop for Windows (wsl2)

metal450 commented 2 months ago

Have you already checked elsewhere?

[X] I have read the Devilbox documentation
[X] I have checked the Devilbox Troubleshooting Guide
[X] I have checked the Devilbox FAQ
[X] I have checked the Devilbox Howto
[X] I have checked the Devilbox Forum
[X] I have checked existing issues
[X] I have googled already with no luck
[ ] I have not done any of the above

What are you struggling with?

I've got Devilbox up & running, on Docker Desktop for Windows (wsl2). Now I'd like to move my projects from data/www to elsewhere:

Using HOST_PATH_HTTPD_DATADIR per the docs doesn't seem to apply in my case, as my projects are located in various places (i.e. not all under one parent dir)
If I try symlinking i.e. mklink /j data\www\site1\htdocs D:\site1\htdocs, & then check vhosts.php, it says Missing htdocs directory in: ./data/www/site1/. Checking the httpd container's logs, I see Warning: DocumentRoot [/shared/httpd/site1/htdocs] does not exist. If I use Docker Desktop's terminal to navigate to path in the container - /shared/httpd/site1/htdocs - it can't cd to there. Ok, maybe it's something with Docker. So instead:
I try just using docker-compose.override.yml to map a volume directly to the project, like:
```
httpd:
volumes:
  - ../../../../site1/htdocs:/shared/httpd/site1/htdocs
```
Now vhosts.php shows "OK" & I can get to the files via Docker's terminal. Great! However, if I visit in the browser - https://site1.test - it shows "File not found." No hints in the container logs or apache logs - it seems pretty obvious that the path is wrong. But I can't see how. I'm also confused as to why, if it can't find the files, it doesn't just show an empty listing, as it does for other empty folders in www.

Seems similar to https://devilbox.discourse.group/t/weird-symlink-behavior/79/3, but I couldn't find a solution there either. Help would be much appreciated.

What have you tried already?

Described above

What is your goal?

Described above

metal450 commented 2 months ago

Addendum: I just noticed something else. When I start the container, it's actually creating www/site1/htdocs, which is empty. If I delete that empty site1 folder it created, then vhosts.php actually doesn't show the host at all - so the "OK" there was maybe just looking at that empty directory, rather than my mapped volume. Once that's deleted, if I access https://site1.test in the browser, it actually routes me to the main devilbox dashboard - ie equivalent to http://localhost.

I thought I was really close to the solution...but actually now I'm at even more of a loss.

metal450 commented 2 months ago

Got it! The issue was that I had to map the same paths, i.e. - ../../../../site1/htdocs:/shared/httpd/site1/htdocs, to both the httpd and php containers. Then it worked.

cytopia / devilbox