How to Set Up Docker to Work as a WAMP Stack

In this tutorial, we will guide you through the process of setting up Docker to work as a WAMP (Windows, Apache, MySQL, PHP) stack. This setup will allow you to run your PHP applications in a Docker container with Apache as the web server and MySQL as the database.

Step 1: Create a Dockerfile
Firstly, we need to create a Dockerfile. This file will define the environment for our PHP and Apache services. Here’s a basic Dockerfile that you can use:

FROM php:7.4-apache
RUN docker-php-ext-install mysqli
COPY . /var/www/html/
EXPOSE 80

This Dockerfile does the following:

Starts from the php:7.4-apache image, which includes PHP 7.4 and Apache.
Installs the mysqli extension for PHP, which is needed to connect to MySQL.
Copies the current directory (.) into /var/www/html/, which is the default Apache document root.
Exposes port 80, which is the default port for HTTP.

Step 2: Create a docker-compose.yml File
Next, we need to create a docker-compose.yml file. This file will define and manage our MySQL service and link it to our PHP and Apache services. Here’s a basic docker-compose.yml file that you can use:

version: '3'
services:
  web:
    build: .
    ports:
      - "8080:80"
    volumes:
      - .:/var/www/html
    links:
      - db
  db:
    image: mysql:5.7
    environment:
      MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: root
      MYSQL_DATABASE: mydb
      MYSQL_USER: user
      MYSQL_PASSWORD: password

This docker-compose.yml file does the following:

Defines two services: web and db.
The web service is built from the current directory (which should contain your Dockerfile) and maps port 8080 on your host to port 80 on the container. It also mounts the current directory to /var/www/html in the container and links to the db service.
The db service uses the mysql:5.7 image and sets up a number of environment variables to configure MySQL.

Step 3: Build and Run Your Services
Finally, you can build and run your services with the following command:

docker-compose up -d

This command will start your services in the background (-d stands for “detached mode”).

And there you have it! You’ve successfully set up Docker to work as a WAMP stack. Please note that this is a very basic setup and might not be suitable for production environments. For example, you might want to use Docker volumes for persistent storage of your MySQL data, and you might want to use environment variables or Docker secrets to manage sensitive information such as your MySQL root password. Happy Dockerizing!