CiviCRM buildkit on Docker

CiviCRM buildkit on Docker is primarily built for development. It may also be useful for hosting. Contributions welcome.

The CiviCRM Dockerfile (civicrm/Dockerfile) in this repo is published on Docker hub at https://hub.docker.com/r/michaelmcandrew/civicrm/. It is designed to work with a MySQL compatible container. You may wish to use it with other containers like phpmyadmin and maildev.

The docker-compose.yml file in this repository is a good starting point for Docker development. Advanced users may wish to create their own docker-compose.yml.

Requirements

• Docker
• Docker compose

Getting started

1. Clone this repository
2. From the repsitory root, run docker-compose up -d to start the containers
3. Create a dmaster demo site with docker-compose exec -u buildkit civicrm civibuild create dmaster --url http://localhost:8080
4. Navigate to your new CiviCRM development site at http://localhost:8080

Note: for less surprises, consider using a stable release.

Usage

CLI commands

Buildkit cli commands can be run from the host with:

docker-compose exec -u buildkit civicrm <COMMAND>

Alternatively, you can login to the container and run commands from there with:

docker-compose exec -u buildkit civicrm bash

Note: to avoid permissions issues, ensure that you connect to the containers as the buildkit user, not as root.

The /buildkit/build mount

The build directory of this repository is mounted into the civicrm container at /buildkit/build. Builds created in the container are visible here, so files can be edited directly on the host.

The /extra mount

We also mount an the extra directory of this repository at /extra for ad hoc use.

Multiple builds and site URLs

In the Getting started example above, the URL has been explicitly set as http://localhost:8080. By default, new builds created with this Docker image are created at http://[SITE_NAME].buildkit:8080. This makes it simple to create multiple builds in the same container.

However you will need to manually create the /etc/hosts entries (or set up wildcard DNS) as the civicrm container is not able to access the host to do this for you.

phpMyAdmin

phpMyAdmin is available for database admin at http://localhost:8081.

Development email

Navigate to http://localhost:8082 to view all email sent from the civicrm container.

Background: by default, buildkit disables outbound mail. We delete civicrm-buildkit/app/civicrm.settings.d/100-mail.php which re-enables outbound mail. We install msmtp on the civicrm container and configure it to deliver all mail to the maildev container.

Aliases

docker-compose commands get quite verbose. You may want to create aliases as follows:

alias bku='docker-compose --file $HOME/civicrm-buildkit-docker/docker-compose.yml up -d'
alias bkc='docker-compose --file $HOME/civicrm-buildkit-docker/docker-compose.yml exec -u buildkit civicrm'
alias bkb='docker-compose --file $HOME/civicrm-buildkit-docker/docker-compose.yml exec -u buildkit civicrm bash'
alias bk='docker-compose --file $HOME/civicrm-buildkit-docker/docker-compose.yml'

You can then:

• bring up the containers with bku
• run build and admin tools with bkc, for example bkc civibuild create dmaster.
• start bash in the civicrm container with bkb.
• run any other docker compose command with bk, e.g. bk down

Note: the above aliases assume you have downloaded this repo to $HOME/civicrm-buildkit-docker. Please adjust as appropriate if you have downloaded it somewhere else.

Using different versions of PHP

See publish/README.md for instructions on how to build CiviCRM containers that use different versions of PHP.

UID and GID conflicts

Bind mounts are fussy when it comes to user ids and group ids. If the user on your host machine has a different UID and GID to the buildkit user in the container (which is 1000 by default), you can create a custom build (see below) that passes BUILDKIT_UID and BUILDKIT_GID as arguments.

Custom builds

This repository comes with a docker-compose-build.yml that can be used for custom builds. Custom builds are useful if you want to pass particular arguments to the build. For example, you can define the UID and GID of the buildkit user (see below).

You can create a custom build with a custom UID for the buildkit user as follows:

1. Overwrite docker-compose.yml with docker-compose-build.yml.
2. Change the BUILDKIT_UID argument to match your user id if necessary (echo $UID should give you your user id).
3. run docker-compose up -d --build.

Getting help

Feel free to ask any questions you have on the sysadmin chatroom (mentioning @michaelmcandrew if you feel like it), or file an issue in the github issue queue.

Upgrading

New docker images are periodically released on Docker Hub at https://hub.docker.com/r/michaelmcandrew/civicrm/. You can upgrade to the latest version as follows:

1. Download the latest image with docker pull michaelmcandrew/civicrm.
2. Run docker-compose up -d will rebuild your containers with the latest image.

Note: we mount /buildkit as a volume so that any changes you make to the civicrm container (and your bash history, etc.) persist accross restarts. This volume is mounted over the /buildkit directory that comes with the container. You will need to delete this volume (it gets recreated automatically based on the contents of the container) if you want to access the /buildkit directory that comes with the upgraded container. You can do that all follows:

From the civicrm-buildkit-docker directory:

1. Stop your containers docker-compose down.
2. Identify the /buildkit volume with docker volume ls. It will have a 'volume name' along the lines of civicrmbuildkitdocker_buildkit.
3. Remove the volume with docker volume rm [VOLUME NAME].
4. Restart the containers with docker-compose up -d.

Architecture

We stick with the defaults and follow best practice whenever possible. Sometimes CiviCRM best practice and Docker best practice are at odds. In these situations we are often forced to do things the CiviCRM way. When this happens, we make a note in the 'cloud native' project of the steps we could take to make CiviCRM more Docker friendly (e.g. environment variables to configure SMTP).

The docker-compose.yml defines the following containers:

• civicrm (serves the sites; contains build and admin tools like civibuild, cv, etc.)
• mysql
• phpmyadmin for easier MySQL admin
• maildev to catch outbound email

It seems like might make sense to integrate this repository with civicrm-buildkit at some point. I don't think that would be too hard to do.

More general discussion about CiviCRM and Docker is welcome in CivCRM's 'cloud-native' project.

Credits

CiviCRM Buildkit Docker is written by Michael McAndrew from Third Sector Design who you can contact for help, support and further development.

Contributing

Contributions to this repository are very welcome. Feel free to submit a pull request for minor improvements. For larger changes, please create an issue first.

See also

• Publishing Dockerfiles for details on how to update the image published on https://hub.docker.com.

License

This extension is licensed under AGPL-3.0.