Setting up Laravel with Docker : Part 3

“Containers stacked on top of each other.” by frank mckenna on Unsplash

This is part 3 of the series of setting up Laravel with docker post. In part 1, we set up Laravel application using Dockerfile. In part2, we improved on our initial to use docker-compose. Instead of building the container from scratch, we used the official docker containers and put them together to have a working application. If you haven’t read part 2, I strongly suggest you to do so.

If you work in a team and not everyone in the team are familiar with docker, it would be a steep learning curve for the team to use our containers. So, in this post we will improve on what we have done so far and add a small utility script to easily interact with our containers.

Creating the script

In the root of your application (~/laravel) create a file called container and paste the following code in it. I will explain what the script does later in the post.

#!/bin/bash -e


SRC_DIR=~/laravel
DOCKER="docker-compose run --rm -w /var/www/html app"

function usage {
  echo -e "Laravel Docker CLI - Tool to work with laravel docker container.\n"
  echo -e "usage: dev [command]"
  echo -e "   or: dev [command] [arguments]"
  echo -e "   or: dev [docker_commands] [arguments]\n"
  echo "Arguments:"
  echo "    start        Start docker container"
  echo "    stop         Stop docker container"
  echo "    status       Check status of docker container"
  echo "    ssh          SSH into the docker container."
  echo "    composer     Run composer command in the docker container."
  echo "    php          Run php cli in the docker container."
  echo "    help         Display usage"
}

if [ $# -gt 0 ]; then
  if [ "$1" == "ssh" ]; then
    docker exec -it laravel_app_1 bash
  elif [ "$1" == "start" ]; then
    docker-compose up -d
  elif [ "$1" == "stop" ]; then
    docker-compose down
  elif [ "$1" == "status" ]; then
    docker-compose ps
  elif [ "$1" == "php" ] || [ "$1" == "composer" ]; then
    $DOCKER "$@"
  elif [ "$1" == "help" ] || [ "$1" == "-h" ] || [ "$1" == "--help" ]; then
    usage; exit
  else
    usage; exit
  fi
else
  usage; exit
fi

Usage

Give it a executable permissions by typing the following in your terminal.

chmod +x container

Now we should be able to execute the script. In your terminal, execute the script by typing:

./container -h

That will output the help for the script. The help message is whatever we are outputting from our usage function.

Laravel Docker CLI - Tool to work with laravel docker container.

usage: dev [command]
   or: dev [command] [arguments]
   or: dev [docker_commands] [arguments]

Arguments:
    start        Start docker container
    stop         Stop docker container
    status       Check status of docker container
    ssh          SSH into the docker container.
    composer     Run composer command in the docker container.
    php          Run php cli in the docker container.
    help         Display usage

Now you can interact with your php and composer without having to remember the docker commands.

./container composer install 
./container php -v

Explanation of script

The shebang in the first line tells the interpreter that this is a bash script.

#!/bin/bash -e

We then create some variables that we will be using later in the script.

SRC_DIR=~/laravel 
DOCKER="docker-compose run --rm -w /var/www/html app"

As the name suggests, usage function prints out the usage information of the script. If the user types ./container -h, this function will print this information in the console.

function usage {
  echo -e "Laravel Docker CLI - Tool to work with laravel docker container.\n"
  echo -e "usage: dev [command]"
  echo -e "   or: dev [command] [arguments]"
  echo -e "   or: dev [docker_commands] [arguments]\n"
  echo "Arguments:"
  echo "    start        Start docker container"
  echo "    stop         Stop docker container"
  echo "    status       Check status of docker container"
  echo "    ssh          SSH into the docker container."
  echo "    composer     Run composer command in the docker container."
  echo "    php          Run php cli in the docker container."
  echo "    help         Display usage"
}

We then check if the user passed any parameter when invoking the script. If no parameters were passed then usage will be outputted to the terminal.

if [ $# -gt 0 ]; then
   ...
else
   usage; exit;
fi

If any parameters were passed while invoking the script, we check the value of passed parameters. If the parameter passed is ssh then we will invoke the command to ssh them into the container.

if [ "$1" == "ssh" ]; then
    docker exec -it laravel_app_1 bash

This is the core of the script and we perform tasks based on the given parameter. If the parameter given is php or composer then we invoke the given command inside the container.

elif [ "$1" == "php" ] || [ "$1" == "composer" ]; then
    $DOCKER "$@"

"[email protected]" here means all the parameters that were passed when invoking the container script. Lets say that user types following command in the console.

./container php -v

Above command will be expanded to become following:

docker-compose run --rm -w /var/www/html app php -v

The command will display the version of php installed in the container.

Conclusion

Of course this is a very simple example, however you can extend the same idea to manage complex application using the similar scripts. Specially if you are working in a team then not everyone in your team will have to be familiar or remember these docker commands. Simply give them the scripts that can perform all necessary functionalities within the container.

Related posts

Setting up laravel with docker: Part 1
Setting up laravel with docker: Part 2

Originally published at subash.com.au on January 13, 2018.