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Migrating from v2 to v3

If you're moving from v2 to v3, there are a number of changes you should be aware of. We've tried to keep these to a minimum, but some of these changes were necessary to make the project more maintainable and easier to use.

👉 Preparing for the migration

If you're an existing user of our v2 images, be sure that your current configurations are NOT set to use the latest images. To do this, you can lock your images into the v2.2.1 tag. This will ensure that you're not automatically upgraded to the v3 images.

For example, if you are using 8.2-fpm-nginx, you would change your docker-compose.yml file to use the v2.2.1 tag:

Original `docker-compose.yml` file

services:
  php:
    image: serversideup/php:8.2-fpm-nginx
    ports:
      - 80:80
    volumes:
      - .:/var/www/html

Updated `docker-compose.yml` file

services:
  php:
    image: serversideup/php:8.2-fpm-nginx-v2.2.1
    ports:
      - 80:80
    volumes:
      - .:/var/www/html

All you need to do is add -v2.2.1 to the end of the image tag. This will ensure that you're not automatically upgraded to the v3 images.

🚀 New Features

We've been busy overhauling our PHP Docker Images to make them more production-ready and easier to use. Here are some of the new features we've added:

  • Based on official PHP Images - We're now building an improved developer experience on top of the official PHP Docker images.
  • Unprivileged by default - We're now running our images as an unprivileged user by default. This is a huge step forward in security and compatibility.
  • PHP 8.4 support - We're now shipping the latest and greatest.
  • Pin to the exact minor version - Pin your app to the exact minor version of PHP that you want to use. This means you can pin to 8.2.12 instead of 8.2.
  • Easier start up script customization - We now have a folder called /etc/entrypoint.d that allows you to easily customize your container with scripts. Just put them in numerical order and we'll execute any shell script you want. No S6 Overlay knowledge required.
  • Expanded Laravel Automations - We added automations to run config:cache, route:cache, view:cache, event:cache, migrate --force --isolated, and storage:link
  • NGINX Unit Support - We're offering NGINX Unit as a variation as an alternative to PHP-FPM. This allows you to run PHP applications without the need for a webserver like NGINX or Apache to run with PHP-FPM.
  • Available on GitHub Packages - We're now publishing our images to GitHub Packages. This means you can use our images without needing to authenticate with Docker Hub.

⚠️ Breaking changes

The following changes are considered to be "breaking changes" and will require you to make changes to your application.

Ubuntu is no longer used as a base image

We now use Debian or Alpine as our base OS (because we're using the official PHP images as a base). This is a huge change, but we're confident this will be the best direction moving forward.

ppa:ondrej/php is no longer used

Since we're using PHP.net as the "official source of truth" for getting our PHP versions, this means we're also dropping support for the ppa:ondrej/php repository. If you're using things like apt-get install php-redis you will need to change your method of installing PHP extensions.

Learn how to install your own PHP extension →

webuser is no longer being used

We used to add a user called webuser with the UID of 9999 with shell permissions. To increase security, we're now using the www-data user and group that is built into the official PHP images. If you have mounted volumes, you will need to chown the files to match the ID of the www-data user and groups. For Debian, this is 33:33 and for Alpine, this is 82:82.

NGINX and Apache listen on 8080 (HTTP) and 8443 (HTTPS) by default

Our images are now unprivileged by default. This is a major step forward in security and compatibility. Since we are unprivileged by default, we lose the ability to mount on ports less than 1024. If you're using NGINX or Apache, you will need to update your port mappings to use 8080 and 8443 instead of 80 and 443.

Learn more about this change →

S6 Overlay is only used in *-fpm-apache and *-fpm-nginx images

Due to compatibility issues, we only use S6 Overlay in our *-fpm-apache and *-fpm-nginx images. If you were using S6 Overlay for our other variations (cli, fpm, etc), you will need to migrate your scripts to use the new /etc/entrypoint.d folder.

SSL_MODE is now set to off by default (HTTP only)

Running end-to-end SSL by default created more problems than good. By default, we're now shipping HTTP-only by default with the option for people to turn this on.

AUTORUN_ENABLED is now set to false by default.

Having this set to "true" by default also created more problems than good. If you want to use any of the Laravel Automation Scripts, be sure to set this to true.

MSMTP is no longer included in the images

For security and image size reasons, we removed MSMTP from the images. If you need to send emails, use an external SMTP service like Postmark/Sendgrid/Mailgun. You can also extend the image yourself to include MSMTP specifically for your use case.

Variable deprecations

  • WEB_APP_DIRECTORY has now been renamed to APP_BASE_DIR
  • DEBUG_OUTPUT has been removed for in favor of LOG_OUTPUT_LEVEL=debug
  • PUID & PGID are no longer used because it requires root privileges. See the new way to set the UID and GID →
  • MSMTP_RELAY_SERVER_HOSTNAME & MSMTP_RELAY_SERVER_PORT are no longer used because MSMTP is no longer included in the images.
  • PHP_POOL_NAME has been renamed to PHP_FPM_POOL_NAME

📝 Migration Checklist

Here is a good list to perform the migration

Repository

  • Ensure you're committing to a test environment

Docker Compose

  • Update the image name (if applicable)
  • Check each environment variable exists and is set to a proper value See the full list of environment variables →
  • Ensure you updated the ports to 8080 and 8443 for NGINX, Apache, and Unit
  • Consider adding PHP_OPCACHE_ENABLE=1 to your production environment for increased performance

Dockerfile

  • Update the base image name (if applicable)
  • Remove any ppa:ondrej/php references
  • Remove any Ubuntu specific commands
  • Ensure all extensions are installed with the install-php-extensions command Learn how to install your own PHP extension →
  • Ensure your COPY commands are copying with the correct permissions (i.e. --chown=www-data:www-data)

CI/CD

If you're running fpm-nginx (or similar) on a runner that's running as your builds as root, you may need to add user = www-data and group = www-data to your php-fpm.conf file so you can bring FPM up correctly.

If you have to run things as root in CI, you can do this with a multi stage build and set the targets:

Dockerfile

############################################
# Base Image
############################################

# Learn more about the Server Side Up PHP Docker Images at:
# https://serversideup.net/open-source/docker-php/
FROM serversideup/php:8.4-fpm-nginx AS base

## Uncomment if you need to install additional PHP extensions
# USER root
# RUN install-php-extensions bcmath gd

############################################
# Development Image
############################################
FROM base AS development

# We can pass USER_ID and GROUP_ID as build arguments
# to ensure the www-data user has the same UID and GID
# as the user running Docker.
ARG USER_ID
ARG GROUP_ID

# Switch to root so we can set the user ID and group ID
USER root
RUN docker-php-serversideup-set-id www-data $USER_ID:$GROUP_ID  && \
    docker-php-serversideup-set-file-permissions --owner $USER_ID:$GROUP_ID --service nginx
USER www-data

############################################
# CI image
############################################
FROM base AS ci

# Sometimes CI images need to run as root
# so we set the ROOT user and configure
# the PHP-FPM pool to run as www-data
USER root
RUN echo "user = www-data" >> /usr/local/etc/php-fpm.d/docker-php-serversideup-pool.conf && \
    echo "group = www-data" >> /usr/local/etc/php-fpm.d/docker-php-serversideup-pool.conf

############################################
# Production Image
############################################
FROM base AS deploy
COPY --chown=www-data:www-data . /var/www/html
USER www-data

Production/Staging Servers

Deployment

  • CI/CD with valid tests is always encouraged
  • After completing all steps above, you're now ready to deploy the new images