How to correctly link php-fpm and Nginx Docker containers?

Question

I am trying to link 2 separate containers:

• nginx:latest
• php:fpm

The problem is that php scripts do not work. Perhaps the php-fpm configuration is incorrect. Here is the source code, which is in my repository. Here is the file docker-compose.yml:

nginx:
    build: .
    ports:
        - "80:80"
        - "443:443"
    volumes:
        - ./:/var/www/test/
    links:
        - fpm
fpm:
    image: php:fpm
    ports:
        - "9000:9000"

and Dockerfile which I used to build a custom image based on the nginx one:

FROM nginx

# Change Nginx config here...
RUN rm /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf
ADD ./default.conf /etc/nginx/conf.d/

Lastly, here is my custom Nginx virtual host config:

server {
    listen  80;

    server_name localhost;
    root /var/www/test;

    error_log /var/log/nginx/localhost.error.log;
    access_log /var/log/nginx/localhost.access.log;

    location / {
        # try to serve file directly, fallback to app.php
        try_files $uri /index.php$is_args$args;
    }

    location ~ ^/.+\.php(/|$) {
        fastcgi_pass 192.168.59.103:9000;
        fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.*)$;
        include fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        fastcgi_param HTTPS off;
    }
}

Could anybody help me configure these containers correctly to execute php scripts?

P.S. I run containers via docker-composer like this:

docker-compose up

from the project root directory.

Answer 1

I know it is kind an old post, but I've had the same problem and couldn't understand why your code didn't work. After a LOT of tests I've found out why.

It seems like fpm receives the full path from nginx and tries to find the files in the fpm container, so it must be the exactly the same as server.root in the nginx config, even if it doesn't exist in the nginx container.

To demonstrate:

docker-compose.yml

nginx:
    build: .
    ports:
        - "80:80"
    links:
        - fpm
fpm:
    image: php:fpm
    ports:
        - ":9000"

    # seems like fpm receives the full path from nginx
    # and tries to find the files in this dock, so it must
    # be the same as nginx.root
    volumes:
        - ./:/complex/path/to/files/

/etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf

server {
    listen  80;

    # this path MUST be exactly as docker-compose.fpm.volumes,
    # even if it doesn't exist in this dock.
    root /complex/path/to/files;

    location / {
        try_files $uri /index.php$is_args$args;
    }

    location ~ ^/.+\.php(/|$) {
        fastcgi_pass fpm:9000;
        include fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
    }
}

Dockerfile

FROM nginx:latest
COPY ./default.conf /etc/nginx/conf.d/