A WordPress container, which downloads and installs WordPress when the container is started. It is based on my wordpress-husk image, which itself borrows heavily from the official docker WordPress images, and which I'm hoping will be superseded by something from that project.

It also supports sending email, using msmtp. Simply mount your msmtprc into the container at /etc/msmtprc.

When this container is started for the first time, it performs the following steps:

1. download and unpack WordPress
2. wait for the MySQL database to be ready
3. use WP-CLI to install the WordPress
4. install and activate the WordPress theme
5. install and activate WordPress plugins, both from the main repo and local zipfiles
6. set options from all files found in an options directory

When the container is subsequently started, these steps all detect that nothing is required to be done.

Usage

The WordPress configuration must be mounted into the container explicitly. See the directory structure (below). The main WordPress sub-directory of /var/www/html is ${WORDPRESS_CORE}, which must not have a leading nor trailing slash, and which defaults to wordpress is not set.

Additionally, the following environment variables are required to be defined.

The WordPress download requires the following environment variables:

Variable	Description
WORDPRESS_VERSION	Version of WordPress to download and install, e.g. 5.2.2
WORDPRESS_SHA1	SHA1 checksum of wordpress.tar.gz for this version

The WordPress database install requires the following, which are all passed through to wp core install as the named option.

Variable	Option
WORDPRESS_URL	--url
WORDPRESS_TITLE	--title
WORDPRESS_ADMIN_USER	--admin_user
WORDPRESS_ADMIN_PASSWORD	--admin_password
WORDPRESS_ADMIN_EMAIL	--admin_email

The theme installation and activation requires the following:

Variable	Description
WORDPRESS_THEME	Theme name, passed to wp theme install

Plugin installation and activation requires the following:

Variable	Description
WORDPRESS_PLUGINS	Space-separated list of plugins to install and activate
WORDPRESS_PLUGINS_DIR	Directory of additional zipfile plugins to install and activate

Option setting requires the following:

Variable	Description
WORDPRESS_OPTIONS_DIR	Directory containing option files

The option file syntax is line oriented, name=value, where value may not contain a double quote (use &#34; instead). Any line starting with a hash is ignored.

Additionally, the following environment variables are required explicitly, and separately from wp-config.php, so that the wait-for-database-ready script can connect. They format is as in wp-config.php

Variable
DB_HOST
DB_NAME
DB_USER
DB_PASSWORD

Directory Structure

The core WordPress directory is /var/www/html/${WORDPRESS_CORE:-wordpress}.

The WordPress configuration should be mounted into the container at /var/www/html/wp-config.php.

Recommended WordPress configuration

This author suggests using something like /content as the content directory, for which the following configuration is required in wp-config.php:

/** Absolute path to the WordPress directory, to match ${WORDPRESS_CORE:-wordpress}. */
if ( ! defined( 'ABSPATH' ) ) {
	define( 'ABSPATH', dirname( __FILE__ ) . '/wordpress/' );
}

/** Relocate content directory from to /content. */
define( 'WP_CONTENT_URL', '/content' );
define( 'WP_CONTENT_DIR', dirname( __FILE__ ) . '/content' );

/** Sets up WordPress vars and included files. */
require_once( ABSPATH . 'wp-settings.php' );