Install Drupal with Docker Compose on Ubuntu 18.04

Updated Tuesday, March 10, 2020 by Linode Written by Linode

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What Are Docker and Docker Compose?

Docker is a system that provides pre-configured, self-contained applications, frameworks, and software stacks, such as WordPress, Golang, or LAMP. Even entire Linux distributions can be run in Docker. When deployed, these software packages are referred to as containers. Docker also allows you to create your own containers that include any custom software you’d like.

Docker Compose is a complementary system which helps you link together individual Docker containers so they can work together. This guide walks through the deployment of a Drupal container and another PostgreSQL container that Drupal will use to store its data. Docker Compose will facilitate the networking between them.

Containers for Drupal and PostgreSQL are available from Docker Hub in the form of images. A Docker image is a static snapshot of a container which is used to create new container instances. Docker Hub is an official repository where individuals and organizations can upload Docker images for public consumption.

Why Use Docker to Run Drupal?

Using the Drupal and PostgreSQL images from Docker Hub offers the following benefits:

The configuration of the software has been done for you, which means that you don’t need to follow a step-by-step process for each application to get them running on your system.
Updating your software is as simple as downloading the latest images from Docker Hub.
Images and containers are self-contained, which means that they are easy to clean up if you decide to remove them.

Before You Begin

Familiarize yourself with our Getting Started guide and complete the steps for setting your Linode’s hostname and timezone.
Follow our Securing Your Server guide to create a standard user account, harden SSH access, remove unnecessary network services and create firewall rules for your web server; you may need to make additional firewall exceptions for your specific application.

Note
This guide is written for a non-root user. Commands that require elevated privileges are prefixed with sudo. If you’re not familiar with the sudo command, visit our Users and Groups guide.

All configuration files should be edited with elevated privileges. Remember to include sudo before running your text editor.

Install Docker

These steps install Docker Community Edition (CE) using the official Ubuntu repositories. To install on another distribution, or to install on Mac or Windows, see the official installation page.

Remove any older installations of Docker that may be on your system:
```
sudo apt remove docker docker-engine docker.io
```

Make sure you have the necessary packages to allow the use of Docker’s repository:

sudo apt install apt-transport-https ca-certificates curl software-properties-common gnupg

Add Docker’s GPG key:

curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo apt-key add -

Verify the fingerprint of the GPG key:

sudo apt-key fingerprint 0EBFCD88

You should see output similar to the following:

  
pub   rsa4096 2017-02-22 [SCEA]
      9DC8 5822 9FC7 DD38 854A  E2D8 8D81 803C 0EBF CD88
uid           [ unknown] Docker Release (CE deb) 
sub   rsa4096 2017-02-22 [S]

Add the stable Docker repository:
```
sudo add-apt-repository "deb [arch=amd64] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu $(lsb_release -cs) stable"
```
Note
For Ubuntu 19.04, if you get an E: Package 'docker-ce' has no installation candidate error, this is because the stable version of docker is not yet available. Therefore, you will need to use the edge / test repository.
```
sudo add-apt-repository "deb [arch=amd64] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu $(lsb_release -cs) stable edge test"
```
Update your package index and install Docker CE:
```
sudo apt update
sudo apt install docker-ce
```
Add your limited Linux user account to the docker group:
```
sudo usermod -aG docker $USER
```
Note
After entering the usermod command, you will need to close your SSH session and open a new one for this change to take effect.
Check that the installation was successful by running the built-in “Hello World” program:
```
docker run hello-world
```

Install Docker Compose

Download the latest version of Docker Compose. Check the releases page and replace 1.25.4 in the command below with the version tagged as Latest release:
```
sudo curl -L https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/download/1.25.4/docker-compose-`uname -s`-`uname -m` -o /usr/local/bin/docker-compose
```

Set file permissions:

sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/docker-compose

Set Up Drupal

Create a new directory in your home folder called my_drupal and cd into it:
```
mkdir ~/my_drupal/
cd ~/my_drupal/
```

Create a file named docker-compose.yml in this folder and add the following contents. Set your own password for the POSTGRES_PASSWORD option.

docker-compose.yml

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version: '3.3'

services:
  drupal:
    image: drupal:latest
    ports:
      - 80:80
    volumes:
      - drupal_modules:/var/www/html/modules
      - drupal_profiles:/var/www/html/profiles
      - drupal_themes:/var/www/html/themes
      - drupal_sites:/var/www/html/sites
    restart: always

  postgres:
    image: postgres:10
    environment:
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: your_postgres_password
    volumes:
        - db_data:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    restart: always

volumes:
  drupal_modules:
  drupal_profiles:
  drupal_themes:
  drupal_sites:
  db_data:

From the my_drupal directory, start your Docker containers:
```
docker-compose up -d
```
The Docker containers will take a minute or two to start up Drupal and PostgreSQL. Afterwards, you can visit your Linode’s IP address in your web browser and you should be directed to the Drupal setup form.
On the Set up database page, select PostgreSQL as the Database type and enter the following values:
- Database name: postgres
- Database username: postgres
- Database password: The password you set in the docker-compose.yml file
- Host (under Advanced Options): postgres
Complete the other screens in the setup guide. When creating your Drupal user, be sure to enter a password that is different from your PostgreSQL password.

Usage and Maintenance

You do not need to manually start your containers if you reboot your Linode, because the option restart: always was assigned to your services in your docker-compose.yml file. This option tells Docker Compose to automatically start your services when the server boots.

Stop Drupal

To stop your Drupal application:

cd ~/my_drupal/
docker-compose stop

This will stop the running Drupal and PostgreSQL containers, but will not remove them.

Restart Drupal

To restart your Drupal application:

cd ~/my_drupal/
docker-compose start

Stop and Remove Drupal

To stop and remove containers, networks and images created by the docker-compose.yml file:

cd ~/my_drupal/
docker-compose down

When a Docker container is taken down, it is also deleted; this is how Docker is designed to work. However, your Drupal files and data will be preserved, as the docker-compose.yml file was configured to create persistent volumes for that data.

If you want to remove this data and start over with your Drupal site, you can add the --volumes flag to the previous command. This will permanently delete the Drupal customizations you’ve made so far.

docker-compose down --volumes

Update Drupal

The docker-compose.yml specifies the latest version of the Drupal image, so it’s easy to update your Drupal version:

docker-compose down
docker-compose pull && docker-compose up -d

Next Steps

More extensive documentation on Docker is available in the Containers section of the Linode Guides & Tutorials site.

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This guide is published under a CC BY-ND 4.0 license.

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