WordPress Guide

Get WordPress running with MySQL and optimized performance.

Quick Start

1. Create docker-compose.yml

services:
  wordpress:
    image: ghcr.io/cboxdk/php-baseimages/php-fpm-nginx:8.3-bookworm
    ports:
      - "8000:80"
    volumes:
      - .:/var/www/html
    depends_on:
      - mysql

  mysql:
    image: mysql:8
    environment:
      MYSQL_DATABASE: wordpress
      MYSQL_USER: wordpress
      MYSQL_PASSWORD: secret
      MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: root_secret
    volumes:
      - mysql-data:/var/lib/mysql

volumes:
  mysql-data:

2. Download WordPress

curl -O https://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz
tar -xzf latest.tar.gz --strip-components=1
rm latest.tar.gz

3. Start

docker compose up -d

Visit http://localhost:8000 and complete the installation wizard.

wp-config.php values:

define('DB_NAME', 'wordpress');
define('DB_USER', 'wordpress');
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'secret');
define('DB_HOST', 'mysql');  // Service name, NOT localhost

Redis Object Cache

Add Redis for faster caching:

services:
  wordpress:
    image: ghcr.io/cboxdk/php-baseimages/php-fpm-nginx:8.3-bookworm
    depends_on:
      - mysql
      - redis

  redis:
    image: redis:7-alpine

wp-config.php:

define('WP_REDIS_HOST', 'redis');
define('WP_REDIS_PORT', 6379);

Install Redis Object Cache plugin.

Development Setup

Use dev image with Xdebug:

services:
  wordpress:
    image: ghcr.io/cboxdk/php-baseimages/php-fpm-nginx:8.3-bookworm-dev
    environment:
      - XDEBUG_MODE=debug,develop
      - XDEBUG_CONFIG=client_host=host.docker.internal

wp-config.php for development:

define('WP_DEBUG', true);
define('WP_DEBUG_LOG', true);
define('WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', false);
define('SCRIPT_DEBUG', true);

Production Checklist

services:
  wordpress:
    image: ghcr.io/cboxdk/php-baseimages/php-fpm-nginx:8.3-bookworm
    volumes:
      - .:/var/www/html:ro
      - ./wp-content/uploads:/var/www/html/wp-content/uploads
    restart: unless-stopped

wp-config.php for production:

define('WP_DEBUG', false);
define('DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT', true);
define('WP_AUTO_UPDATE_CORE', 'minor');

See Production Deployment for full guide.

Common Mistakes

❌ Using localhost

// Wrong
define('DB_HOST', 'localhost');

// Correct - use Docker service name
define('DB_HOST', 'mysql');

❌ Upload permission errors

docker compose exec wordpress chown -R www-data:www-data wp-content/uploads

❌ Memory limit errors

environment:
  - PHP_MEMORY_LIMIT=256M

WP-CLI

Run WP-CLI commands:

docker compose exec wordpress wp --allow-root plugin list
docker compose exec wordpress wp --allow-root theme list
docker compose exec wordpress wp --allow-root cache flush

Next Steps