devilbox/docs/getting-started/best-practice.rst

Best practice

If you have already read all documents in the Getting started guide, you should be ready to fully operate the Devilbox. This section builds on top of that and gives you some best-practices as well as tips and tricks.

Table of Contents

local

Move data out of Devilbox directory

One thing you should take into serious consideration is to move data such as your projects as well as persistent data of databases out of the Devilbox git directory.

The Devilbox git directory should be something that can be safely deleted and re-created without having to worry about loosing any project data. There could also be the case that you have a dedicated hard-disk to store your projects or you have your own idea about a directory structure where you want to store your projects.

Projects

So let's assume all of your projects are already in place under /home/user/workspace/web/. Now you decide to use the Devilbox, but still want to keep your projects where they are at the moment.

All you have to to is to adjust the path of env_httpd_datadir in the .env file.

# Navigate to Devilbox git directory
host> cd path/to/devilbox

# Open the .env file with your favourite editor
host> vim .env

Now Adjust the value of env_httpd_datadir

HOST_PATH_HTTPD_DATADIR=/home/user/workspace/web

That's it, whenever you start up the Devilbox /home/user/workspace/web/ will be mounted into the PHP and the web server container into /shared/httpd/.

Databases

Moving your projects out of the Devilbox git directory is one step, you still need to take care about persistent data of all available databases as well.

Let's assume you desired location for database storage is at /home/user/workspace/db/.

MySQL

All you have to to is to adjust the path of env_mysql_datadir in the .env file.

# Navigate to Devilbox git directory
host> cd path/to/devilbox

# Open the .env file with your favourite editor
host> vim .env

Now Adjust the value of env_mysql_datadir

HOST_PATH_MYSQL_DATADIR=/home/user/workspace/db/mysql

That's it, whenever you start up the Devilbox /home/user/workspace/db/mysql/ will be mounted into the MySQL container.

PostgreSQL

All you have to to is to adjust the path of env_pgsql_datadir in the .env file.

# Navigate to Devilbox git directory
host> cd path/to/devilbox

# Open the .env file with your favourite editor
host> vim .env

Now Adjust the value of env_pgsql_datadir

HOST_PATH_PGSQL_DATADIR=/home/user/workspace/db/pgsql

That's it, whenever you start up the Devilbox /home/user/workspace/db/pqsql/ will be mounted into the PostgreSQL container.

MongoDB

All you have to to is to adjust the path of env_mongo_datadir in the .env file.

# Navigate to Devilbox git directory
host> cd path/to/devilbox

# Open the .env file with your favourite editor
host> vim .env

Now Adjust the value of env_mongo_datadir

HOST_PATH_MONGO_DATADIR=/home/user/workspace/db/mongo

That's it, whenever you start up the Devilbox /home/user/workspace/db/mongo/ will be mounted into the MongoDB container.

Version control .env file

The .env file is ignored by git, because this is your file to customize and it should be your responsibility to make sure to backup or version controlled.

One concept you can apply here is to have a separate dotfiles git repository. This is a repository that holds all of your configuration files such as vim, bash, zsh, xinit and many more. Those files are usually stored inside this repository and then symlinked to the correct location. By having all configuration files in one place, you can see and track changes easily as well as bein able to jump back to previous configurations.

In case of the Devilbox .env file, just store this file in your repository and symlink it to the Devilbox git directiry. This way you make sure that you keep your file, even when the Devilbox git directory is deleted and you also have a means of keeping track about changes you made.

Version control service config files

This will require some changes on the Devilbox and will be implemented shortly.

symlink and have your own git directory

Separate data partition, backups

PHP project hostname settings

When configuring your PHP projects to use MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redis, Mongo and other services, make sure to set the hostname of each of those services to 127.0.0.1.

Why is that?

The PHP container port-forwards each service port to its own listen address on 127.0.0.1. The Devilbox also exposes each of those service ports to the host operating system on 127.0.0.1.

This allows you to keep your project configuration unchanged and have the same behaviour inside the PHP container and on your host operating system.

Important

Do not mix up localhost with 127.0.0.1. They behave differently! Use 127.0.0.1 and do not use localhost.

As an example, if you want to access the MySQL database from within the PHP container, you do the following:

# Navigate to Devilbox git directory
host> cd path/to/devilbox

# Enter the PHP container
host> ./shell.sh

# Enter the MySQL console
php> mysql -u root -h 127.0.0.1 -p
mysql>

The very same command applies to access the MySQL database from your host operating system:

# Enter the MySQL console
host> mysql -u root -h 127.0.0.1 -p
mysql>

So no matter if you use the Devilbox or have another LAMP stack installed locally on your host operating system, you do not have to change your configuration files if you stick to this tip.

So any of your projects php files that configure MySQL as an example should point the hostname or IP address of the MySQL server to 127.0.0.1:

<?php
// MySQL server connection in your project configuration
mysql_host = '127.0.0.1';
mysql_port = '3306';
mysql_user = 'someusername';
mysql_pass = 'somepassword';
?>

tutorial_work_inside_the_php_container

Timezone

The env_timezone value will affect PHP, web server and MySQL container equally. It does however not affect any other official Docker container that are used within the Devilbox. This is an issue that is currently still being worked on.

Feel free to change this to any timezone you require for PHP and MySQL, but keep in mind that timezone values for databases can be painful, once you want to switch to a different timezone.

A good practice is to always use UTC on databases and have your front-end application calculate the correct time for the user. This way you will be more independent of any changes.