How to setup moodle development environment?

Software Required
- docker-compose version 1.22.0
- macOS High Sierra
- docker version 18.06.1-ce
- Moodle 3.6.1

Moodle source code and environment requirement

• I'm using the Moodle 3.6.1 source code to configure my development environment. Below are the environment requirement by the Moodle 3.6.1 application

Steps

• Below are the folder structure to build my containers

Parent
|
|-conf
| |-mysql
| | |-moodle.cnf (1)
| |-php
| | |-custom.php.ini (2)
|-src
| |-moodle (3)
| | |- (All the Moodle source code)
| |-scripts
| | |-moodle.sql (4)
|-Dockerfile (5)
|-docker-compose.yml (6)

• Refer to (5), I have a Dockerfile to configure both Apache, PHP and MySql in my container.  I have added the command to create the "/var/www/moodledata" folder.

FROM php:7.0.33-apache 
RUN docker-php-ext-install mysqli

RUN mkdir /var/www/moodledata 
RUN chmod 777 -R /var/www/moodledata

• Refer to (6), it is my docker-compose.yml that I used to configure my application service.

version: "2"
services:
    www:
        build: .
        ports: 
            - "8001:80"
        volumes:
 (6-1)-->   - ./src/moodle:/var/www/html/ 
 (6-2)-->   - ./conf/php/custom.php.ini:/usr/local/etc/php/conf.d/custom.php.ini 
        links:
            - db
        networks:
            - default
    db:
        image: mysql:5.7.13
        ports: 
            - "3306:3306"
        environment:
            ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD: "yes"
            MYSQL_DATABASE: moodle
            MYSQL_USER: user
            MYSQL_PASSWORD: test
            MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: test
        volumes:
 (6-3)-->   - ./src/scripts/dump:/docker-entrypoint-initdb.d 
 (6-4)-->   - ./conf/mysql:/etc/mysql/conf.d
            - persistent:/var/lib/mysql
        networks:
            - default
    phpmyadmin:
        image: phpmyadmin/phpmyadmin
        links: 
            - db:db
        ports:
            - 8000:80
        environment:
            MYSQL_USER: user
            MYSQL_PASSWORD: test
            MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: test
volumes:
    persistent:

• Refer to (6-1) in the docker-compose.yml, I have mounted the source code development folder to "./src/moodle" [Please refer to (3) at folder structure]. Please map your project directory from your favourite IDE to this folder. All the changes in the source code will be reflected in your development container immediately.

• Refer to (6-2) in the docker-compose.yml, all the configuration for your php.ini will be placed in custom.php.ini file. I have mounted the container's php configuration into "./conf/php/custom.php.ini" [Please refer to (2) at folder structure]. Please refer to the content of my custom.php.ini as shown below. I have included the opcache configuration which is required by Moodle installation here.

display_startup_errors=On
log_errors=On

zend_extension=opcache.so

[opcache]
opcache.enable = 1
opcache.memory_consumption = 128
opcache.max_accelerated_files = 10000
opcache.revalidate_freq = 60

; Required for Moodle
opcache.use_cwd = 1
opcache.validate_timestamps = 1
opcache.save_comments = 1
opcache.enable_file_override = 0

• Refer to (6-3) in the docker-compose.yml, I added my Moodle's DB dump (moodle.sql) at "./conf/mysql/" folder [Please refer to (4) at folder structure] on my local machine. I have mounted it to the container and all the SQL files place in this folder will be executed during the installation. Assumption: You have configured your Moodle with complete database.

• Refer to (6-4) in the docker-compose.yml, all the customization for your my.cnf will be placed in "./conf/mysql/" folder [Please refer to (1) at folder structure]. For Moodle installation, I have created moodle.cnf and placed all my configuration in this file. Please refer to the content of my moodle.cnf as shown below.

[client]
default-character-set = utf8mb4

[mysqld]
innodb_file_format = Barracuda
innodb_file_per_table = 1
innodb_large_prefix

character-set-server = utf8mb4
collation-server = utf8mb4_unicode_ci
skip-character-set-client-handshake

[mysql]
default-character-set = utf8mb4

• Start the Moodle installation by executing command below. Browse to http://localhost:8001, your Moodle side is ready for use now.

#docker-compose up

Extra Tips: Clean docker container and image (Optional)

$ docker stop $(docker ps -a -q)
$ docker rm $(docker ps -a -q)
$ docker rmi $(docker images -q)
$ docker volume rm $(docker volume ls -q)

Extra Tips: Explore the structure of the image in the container

• Run command below to check the container ID

$ docker ps

• Based on the container ID that we get from the previous command, run command below to remote into the container to explore the file structure

$docker exec -t -i [container id] /bin/bash