{"id":92159,"date":"2026-04-06T21:07:33","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T02:07:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bricktowntom.com\/blog\/?p=92159"},"modified":"2026-04-06T21:07:33","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T02:07:33","slug":"setting-up-your-php-development-environment-with-docker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bricktowntom.com\/blog\/04\/setting-up-your-php-development-environment-with-docker.html","title":{"rendered":"Setting Up Your PHP Development Environment with Docker"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n \"PHP
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

The following article is an excerpt from PHP & MySQL: Novice to Ninja, 7th Edition<\/a><\/em>, a hands-on guide to learning all the tools, principles, and techniques needed to build a professional web application using PHP and MySQL. In this tutorial, we cover how to set up a web server with Docker.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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In this book, I\u2019ll guide you as you take your first steps beyond the static world of building web pages with the purely client-side technologies of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Together, we\u2019ll explore the world of building websites, and discover the dizzying array of dynamic tools, concepts, and possibilities they open up. Whatever you do, don\u2019t look down!<\/p>\n

Okay, maybe you should<\/em> look down. After all, that\u2019s where the rest of this book is. But remember, you were warned!<\/p>\n

Before you build your first dynamic website, you must gather together the tools you\u2019ll need for the job. Like baking a cake, you\u2019ll need the ingredients before you can start following the recipe. In this chapter, I\u2019ll show you how to download and set up the software packages required.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re used to building websites with HTML, CSS, and perhaps even a smattering of JavaScript, you\u2019re probably familiar with uploading the files that make up your site to a certain location. It might be a web hosting service you\u2019ve paid for, a web space provided by your internet service provider, or maybe a web server set up by the IT department of the company you work for. In any case, once you copy your files to any of these destinations, a software program called a web server is able to find and serve up copies of those files whenever they\u2019re requested by a web browser like Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Safari, or Firefox. Common web server software programs you may have heard of include Apache HTTP Server (Apache), NGINX, and Internet Information Services.<\/p>\n

PHP is a server-side scripting language. It\u2019s completely free to download and use. You can think of it as a plugin for your web server that enables it to do more than just send exact copies of the files requested by web browsers. With PHP installed, your web server will be able to run little programs \u2014 called PHP scripts \u2014 that can do tasks like retrieve up-to-the-minute information from a database and use it to generate a web page on the fly, before sending it to the browser that requested it. Much of this book will focus on writing PHP scripts to do exactly that.<\/p>\n

For your PHP scripts to retrieve information from a database, you must first have<\/em> a database. That\u2019s where MySQL comes in. MySQL is a relational database management system<\/strong>, or RDBMS. We\u2019ll discuss the exact role it plays and how it works later, but briefly, it\u2019s a software program that\u2019s able to organize and manage many pieces of information efficiently while keeping track of how all those pieces of information are related to each other. MySQL also makes that information really easy to access with server-side scripting languages such as PHP. And, like PHP, it\u2019s completely free for most uses.<\/p>\n

The goal of this first chapter is to set you up with a web server equipped with PHP and MySQL. I\u2019ll provide step-by-step instructions that work on recent versions of Windows, macOS, and Linux, so no matter what flavor of computer you\u2019re using, the instructions you need should be right here.<\/p>\n

Your Own Web Server<\/h2>\n

Chances are, your current web host\u2019s web server already has PHP and MySQL installed \u2014 which is one of the reasons PHP and MySQL are so popular. If your web host is so equipped, the good news is that you\u2019ll be able to publish your first website without having to shop for a web host that supports the right technologies.<\/p>\n

When developing static websites, you can simply load your HTML files directly from your hard disk into your browser to see how they look. There\u2019s no web server software involved when you do this, which is fine, because web browsers can read and understand HTML code all by themselves.<\/p>\n

However, when it comes to dynamic websites built using PHP and MySQL, your web browser needs some help. Web browsers are unable to understand PHP scripts. Instead, PHP scripts contain instructions for a PHP-savvy web server to execute in order to generate<\/em> the HTML code that browsers can understand.<\/p>\n

Even if you have an existing web host that supports PHP, you\u2019re still going to want to be able to run PHP scripts yourself without needing to use someone else\u2019s server. For this, you\u2019ll need to set up your own web server. The word \u201cserver\u201d might make you think of a large, air-conditioned room filled with big computers in racks. But don\u2019t worry, you don\u2019t need any fancy new hardware. Your laptop or desktop computer will work just fine.<\/p>\n

To run PHP scripts on your web host, you need to write them in your editor, open your FTP or SSH client and upload them to the server. Only then can you see the result in your browser by navigating to the URI of the file you created. If you made a mistake and there\u2019s an error, you\u2019ll need to change the code, go back into your FTP program, upload the file again and then reload the page. This is tedious, and uses up precious time that you could be using to write code. By running a server on your own PC, you\u2019ll be able to save a file in your editor and view the changes in your browser by simply refreshing the page \u2014 no file uploading required. This is a real time saver, and one of the biggest (although not only!) advantages of running a server on your PC \u2014 even if you have a perfectly good web host already.<\/p>\n

So how do you get a web server running on your PC? There are four ways to achieve this, each with its own advantages and disadvantages.<\/p>\n

Server Setup 1: Manually Installing All the Software Components<\/h3>\n

Apache is a web server, and like most software it comes with an installer that lets you easily set it up on your PC. Without much effort, you can have it serve<\/em> web pages. However, there are hundreds of configuration options, and unless you know what you\u2019re doing, it can be time consuming and confusing to get it working for developing PHP websites.<\/p>\n

For our purposes of running PHP scripts, a web server alone is not enough. For manual installation, you\u2019ll also need to install PHP \u2014 which doesn\u2019t have an installer \u2014 and configure it. As with Apache, there are lots of options, and the defaults are set up as if you\u2019re running a live website. For developing code, this is bad, as there are no errors shown. If you make a mistake, you\u2019ll get a blank page with no indication of what went wrong. Even a single character out of place \u2014 such as a missing brace or semicolon \u2014 will give you a blank page, with no indication of what caused the problem. To solve this, you\u2019ll need to manually configure the PHP installation and tweak the settings to show error messages and enable other tools that make development a more pleasant task.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll also need to configure Apache to talk with PHP, so that when someone connects to the server and requests a file with a .php<\/code> extension, the file is first sent to PHP for processing.<\/p>\n

To follow along with this book, you\u2019ll also want MySQL, which means manually installing and configuring that as well.<\/p>\n

Apache, MySQL and PHP each have dozens of configuration options, and unless you know exactly what you\u2019re doing, they can be difficult to set up. Even if you\u2019re an expert, it will take at least an hour to get everything working!<\/p>\n

Manual installation requires a significant amount of knowledge or research and is beyond the scope of this book. Being able to configure a server is a useful skill, to be sure, but it doesn\u2019t help you learn how to program using PHP \u2014 which is what you\u2019re really interested in if you\u2019re reading this book.<\/p>\n

This option is not for the faint hearted, and even for seasoned professionals it\u2019s very easy to miss some important settings. Luckily for us, we don\u2019t need to worry about setting up and configuring all the software individually.<\/p>\n

Server Setup 2: Pre-packaged Installations<\/h3>\n

The problems with manual installations have been recognized by groups of developers over the years, and to overcome them they\u2019ve built pre-packaged installations \u2014 a single installer that installs PHP, Apache, MySQL and other relevant software, all pre-configured with appropriate settings for developers like you. The most popular example of this kind of package is XAMPP: X (any operating system), Apache, MySQL (or more specifically, MariaDB, a \u201cfork\u201d of MySQL with a better license), PHP, and Perl. Alternatives include WAMP (Windows, Apache, MySQL, and PHP), LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP), and MAMP (macOS, Apache, MySQL, and PHP).<\/p>\n

This is obviously a lot simpler than manually installing each piece of software, and doesn\u2019t require you to learn how to configure your server. It\u2019s quick and easy and a lot better than a manual installation, though there are still a couple of problems you may encounter with this method, listed below.<\/p>\n