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 wordpress_01 directory for each WordPress site you want to host. I created a copy called wordpress_02 as an example. If you only want to host one site you can delete wordpress_02 and modify wordpress_01 to your liking.

• In each site directory is a sample.env - copy that file, edit the environment variables and rename it to .env. Each site directory must contain this environment file.

• Make sure that the container names are unique for each site. (DB_CONTAINER, WP_CONTAINER 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/${VIRTUAL_HOST}/wp_content for persistency. This folder contains themes, plugins and uploads.

• Database files are mounted here: /srv/www/${VIRTUAL_HOST}/db_data

Custom Theme & Plugin Development

• You can develop a custom theme in wordpress_XX/theme or a custom plugin in wordpress_XX/plugin. Theme and plugin are named after the according environment variable defined in .env (WP_THEME and WP_PLUGIN)

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.

{
    "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

Local Development

For local development set the values of VIRTUAL_HOSTand LETSENCRYPT_HOST 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