How to run wp cli in docker-compose.yml

Question

Just starting in docker here

So I got this in my docker-compose.yml

version: '3.3'

services:
  db:
    image: mysql:5.7
    volumes:
      - db_data:/var/lib/mysql
    restart: always
    environment:
      MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: somewordpress
      MYSQL_DATABASE: wordpress
      MYSQL_USER: wordpress
      MYSQL_PASSWORD: wordpress

  wordpress:
    depends_on:
      - db
    image: wordpress:latest
    ports:
      - 8000:80
    restart: always
    environment:
      WORDPRESS_DB_HOST: db:3306
      WORDPRESS_DB_NAME: wordpress
      WORDPRESS_DB_USER: wordpress
      WORDPRESS_DB_PASSWORD: wordpress
      WORDPRESS_TABLE_PREFIX: "wp_"
      WORDPRESS_DEBUG: 1

  wordpress-cli:
    depends_on:
      - db
      - wordpress
    image: wordpress:cli
    command: wp core install --path="/var/www/html" --url=localhost --title="Local Wordpress By Docker" --admin_user=admin --admin_password=secret --admin_email=[e-mail]

volumes:
  db_data:

So I wanted to run the wp core install so that I won't have to go through the process of manually setting up my test wordpress site.

However when I run docker-compose up, this does not seem to work, I got this error on the console

What am I missing here? Anyone can help me accomplish my goal of automating the of setting up wordpress install?

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

Well there are a couple of problems. The first one is that those two containers (wordpress and wordpress-cli) don't share a volume. So while wordpress has a wordpress installation ready, the wordpress-cli doesn't.

So you can add volumes to both containers, and then wordpress-cli will find the wordpress installation.

Then there's a second problem: the wordpress:latest and wordpress:cli images both run with the user www-data, but the problem is that the individual www-data users have different user-id's:

$ docker run --rm wordpress:latest grep www-data /etc/passwd 
www-data:x:33:33:www-data:/var/www:/usr/sbin/nologin
$ docker run --rm wordpress:cli grep www-data /etc/passwd   
www-data:x:82:82:Linux User,,,:/home/www-data:/bin/false

It seems they aren't exactly compatible here. So if you use a shared volume you have to make sure they both use the same user-id. I solved this by having the wordpress:cli run with the user xfs which also has the user id 33.

The last problem is that your containers have dependencies on each other. Wordpress needs a running MySQL instance and the wordpress-cli needs also the MySQL and the Wordpress to be ready. To make sure MySQL is ready for the wordpress cli installation you either use something like "wait-for-it" or in a simple case you can just wait a couple of seconds and then try it.

I have tested all those changes and came up with the following docker-compose.yml. I have annotated all the changes I've made with "vstm":

version: "2.3"
services:
  db:
    image: mysql:5.7
    volumes:
      - db_data:/var/lib/mysql
    restart: always
    environment:
      MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: somewordpress
      MYSQL_DATABASE: wordpress
      MYSQL_USER: wordpress
      MYSQL_PASSWORD: wordpress

  wordpress:
    depends_on:
      - db
    image: wordpress:latest
    ports:
      - 8000:80
    restart: always
    environment:
      WORDPRESS_DB_HOST: db:3306
      WORDPRESS_DB_NAME: wordpress
      WORDPRESS_DB_USER: wordpress
      WORDPRESS_DB_PASSWORD: wordpress
      WORDPRESS_TABLE_PREFIX: "wp_"
      WORDPRESS_DEBUG: 1
    # vstm: add shared volume
    volumes:
      - wp_data:/var/www/html

  wordpress-cli:
    depends_on:
      - db
      - wordpress
    image: wordpress:cli
    # vstm: This is required to run wordpress-cli with the same
    # user-id as wordpress. This way there are no permission problems
    # when running the cli
    user: xfs
    # vstm: The sleep 10 is required so that the command is run after
    # mysql is initialized. Depending on your machine this might take
    # longer or it can go faster.
    command: >
      /bin/sh -c '
      sleep 10;
      wp core install --path="/var/www/html" --url="http://localhost:8000" --title="Local Wordpress By Docker" --admin_user=admin --admin_password=secret --admin_email=[e-mail]
      '
    # vstm: add shared volume
    volumes:
      - wp_data:/var/www/html

volumes:
  db_data:
  # vstm: add shared volume
  wp_data:

It uses a docker-volume but you can also map it to a filesystem. Depends on how you plan to use your docker-compose.