pixelfed/docker

Pixelfed + Docker + Docker Compose

Prerequisites

• One of the docker-compose.yml files in this directory
• A copy of the example.env file named .env next to docker-compose.yml

Your folder should look like this

.
├── .env
└── docker-compose.yml

Modifying your settings (.env file)

Minimum required settings to change is:

• APP_NAME
• APP_DOMAIN
• DB_PASSWORD

See the Configure environment variables documentation for details!

You need to mainly focus on following sections

• App variables
• Email variables

Since the following things are configured for you out of the box:

• Redis
• Database (except for DB_PASSWORD)

Runtimes

The Pixelfed Dockerfile support multiple target runtimes (Apache, Nginx + FPM, and fpm).

You can consider a runtime target as individual Dockerfiles, but instead, all of them are build from the same optimized Dockerfile, sharing +90% of their configuration and packages.

Apache

Building a custom Pixelfed Docker image using Apache + mod_php can be achieved the following way.

docker build (Apache)

docker build \
 -f contrib/docker/Dockerfile \
 --target apache-runtime \
 --tag <docker hub user>/<docker hub repo> \
 .

docker compose (Apache)

version: "3"

services:
  app:
    build:
      context: .
      dockerfile: contrib/docker/Dockerfile
      target: apache-runtime

Nginx

Building a custom Pixelfed Docker image using nginx + FPM can be achieved the following way.

docker build (nginx)

docker build \
 -f contrib/docker/Dockerfile \
 --target nginx-runtime \
 --build-arg 'PHP_BASE_TYPE=fpm' \
 --tag <docker hub user>/<docker hub repo> \
 .

docker compose (nginx)

version: "3"

services:
 app:
  build:
   context: .
   dockerfile: contrib/docker/Dockerfile
   target: nginx-runtime
   args:
     PHP_BASE_TYPE: fpm

FPM

Building a custom Pixelfed Docker image using FPM (only) can be achieved the following way.

docker build (fpm)

docker build \
 -f contrib/docker/Dockerfile \
 --target fpm-runtime \
 --build-arg 'PHP_BASE_TYPE=fpm' \
 --tag <docker hub user>/<docker hub repo> \
 .

docker compose (fpm)

version: "3"

services:
 app:
  build:
   context: .
   dockerfile: contrib/docker/Dockerfile
   target: fpm-runtime
   args:
     PHP_BASE_TYPE: fpm

Customizing your Dockerfile

Running commands on container start

Description

When a Pixelfed container starts up, the ENTRYPOINT script will

1. Search the /docker/entrypoint.d/ directory for files and for each file (in lexical order).
2. Check if the file is executable.
   1. If the file is not executable, print an error and exit the container.
3. If the file has the extension .envsh the file will be sourced.
4. If the file has the extension .sh the file will be run like a normal script.
5. Any other file extension will log a warning and will be ignored.

Debugging

You can set environment variable ENTRYPOINT_DEBUG=1 to show verbose output of what each entrypoint.d script is doing.

You can also docker exec or docker run into a container and run /

Included scripts

• /docker/entrypoint.d/04-defaults.envsh calculates Docker container environment variables needed for templating configuration files.
• /docker/entrypoint.d/05-templating.sh renders template configuration files.
• /docker/entrypoint.d/10-storage.sh ensures Pixelfed storage related permissions and commands are run.
• //docker/entrypoint.d/15-storage-permissions.sh (optionally) ensures permissions for files are corrected (see fixing ownership on startup)
• /docker/entrypoint.d/20-horizon.sh ensures Laravel Horizon used by Pixelfed is configured
• /docker/entrypoint.d/30-cache.sh ensures all Pixelfed caches (router, view, config) is warmed

Disabling entrypoint or individual scripts

To disable the entire entrypoint you can set the variable ENTRYPOINT_SKIP=1.

To disable individual entrypoint scripts you can add the filename to the space (" ") separated variable ENTRYPOINT_SKIP_SCRIPTS. (example: ENTRYPOINT_SKIP_SCRIPTS="10-storage.sh 30-cache.sh")

Templating

The Docker container can do some basic templating (more like variable replacement) as part of the entrypoint scripts via gomplate.

Any file put in the /docker/templates/ directory will be templated and written to the right directory.

File path examples

1. To template /usr/local/etc/php/php.ini in the container put the source file in /docker/templates/usr/local/etc/php/php.ini.
2. To template /a/fantastic/example.txt in the container put the source file in /docker/templates/a/fantastic/example.txt.
3. To template /some/path/anywhere in the container put the source file in /docker/templates/a/fantastic/example.txt.

Available variables

Variables available for templating are sourced (in order, so last source takes precedence) like this:

1. env: in your docker-compose.yml or -e in your docker run / docker compose run
2. Any exported variables in .envsh files loaded before 05-templating.sh (e.g. any file with 04-, 03-, 02-, 01- or 00- prefix)
3. All key/value pairs in /var/www/.env.docker
4. All key/value pairs in /var/www/.env

Template guide 101

Please see the gomplate documentation for a more comprehensive overview.

The most frequent use-case you have is likely to print a environment variable (or a default value if it's missing), so this is how to do that:

• {{ getenv "VAR_NAME" }} print an environment variable and fail if the variable is not set. (docs)
• {{ getenv "VAR_NAME" "default" }} print an environment variable and print default if the variable is not set. (docs)

The script will fail if you reference a variable that does not exist (and don't have a default value) in a template.

Please see the

• gomplate syntax documentation
• gomplate functions documentation

Fixing ownership on startup

You can set the environment variable ENTRYPOINT_ENSURE_OWNERSHIP_PATHS to a list of paths that should have their $USER and $GROUP ownership changed to the configured runtime user and group during container bootstrapping.

The variable is a space-delimited list shown below and accepts both relative and absolute paths:

• ENTRYPOINT_ENSURE_OWNERSHIP_PATHS="./storage ./bootstrap"
• ENTRYPOINT_ENSURE_OWNERSHIP_PATHS="/some/other/folder"

Build settings (arguments)

The Pixelfed Dockerfile utilizes Docker Multi-stage builds and Build arguments.

Using build arguments allow us to create a flexible and more maintainable Dockerfile, supporting multiple runtimes (FPM, Nginx, Apache + mod_php) and end-user flexibility without having to fork or copy the Dockerfile.

Build arguments can be configured using --build-arg 'name=value' for docker build, docker compose build and docker buildx build. For docker-compose.yml the args key for build can be used.

PHP_VERSION

The PHP version to use when building the runtime container.

Any valid Docker Hub PHP version is acceptable here, as long as it's published to Docker Hub

Example values:

• 8 will use the latest version of PHP 8
• 8.1 will use the latest version of PHP 8.1
• 8.2.14 will use PHP 8.2.14
• latest will use whatever is the latest PHP version

Default value: 8.1

PHP_PECL_EXTENSIONS

PECL extensions to install via pecl install

Use PHP_PECL_EXTENSIONS_EXTRA if you want to add additional extenstions.

Only change this setting if you want to change the baseline extensions.

See the PECL extensions documentation on Docker Hub for more information.

Default value: imagick redis

PHP_PECL_EXTENSIONS_EXTRA

Extra PECL extensions (separated by space) to install via pecl install

See the PECL extensions documentation on Docker Hub for more information.

Default value: ""

PHP_EXTENSIONS

PHP Extensions to install via docker-php-ext-install.

NOTE: use PHP_EXTENSIONS_EXTRA if you want to add additional extensions, only override this if you want to change the baseline extensions.

See the How to install more PHP extensions documentation on Docker Hub for more information

Default value: intl bcmath zip pcntl exif curl gd

PHP_EXTENSIONS_EXTRA

Extra PHP Extensions (separated by space) to install via docker-php-ext-install.

See the How to install more PHP extensions documentation on Docker Hub for more information.

Default value: ""

PHP_EXTENSIONS_DATABASE

PHP database extensions to install.

By default we install both pgsql and mysql since it's more convinient (and adds very little build time! but can be overwritten here if required.

Default value: pdo_pgsql pdo_mysql pdo_sqlite

COMPOSER_VERSION

The version of Composer to install.

Please see the Docker Hub composer page for valid values.

Default value: 2.6

APT_PACKAGES_EXTRA

Extra APT packages (separated by space) that should be installed inside the image by apt-get install

Default value: ""

NGINX_VERSION

Version of nginx to when targeting nginx-runtime.

Please see the Docker Hub nginx page for available versions.

Default value: 1.25.3

PHP_BASE_TYPE

The PHP base image layer to use when building the runtime container.

When targeting

• apache-runtime use apache
• fpm-runtime use fpm
• nginx-runtime use fpm

Valid values:

• apache
• fpm
• cli

Default value: apache

PHP_DEBIAN_RELEASE

The Debian Operation System version to use.

Valid values:

• bullseye
• bookworm

Default value: bullseye