Deployment Overview of Joomla on Server¶

Prerequisites and Basic Requirements¶

Operating System: Ubuntu (implied by installation tasks)
Privileges: Root or sudo access is required to manage Docker and system services.
Domain Configuration: The application is configured to use the hostkey.in zone with a specific prefix.
Networking: Docker Engine must be installed and running.
Ports:
- Port 8080: Internal Joomla service port.
- Port 443: External HTTPS access.
- Port 3306: Internal MySQL service port (bound to the host).

FQDN of the Final Panel¶

The application is accessible via the following Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) format, where SERVER_ID is replaced by the unique server identifier:

joomla.hostkey.in:443

File and Directory Structure¶

The deployment utilizes specific directories for configuration, data storage, and proxy management:

Nginx Configuration Directory: /root/nginx
- Contains the Docker Compose file for the proxy stack.
Nginx User Configuration: /data/nginx/user_conf.d
- Stores specific site configuration files, such as joomla<SERVER_ID>.hostkey.in.conf.
Nginx Secrets: Mounted from the external volume nginx_secrets located at /etc/letsencrypt within the container.
Data Volumes:
- MySQL data is stored in the named Docker volume mysql_data mapping to /var/lib/mysql inside the container.
- Joomla data is stored in the named Docker volume joomla_data mapping to /var/www/html inside the container.

Application Installation Process¶

The application is deployed using Docker containers. The following images and versions are used:

Joomla Image: joomla:latest
MySQL Image: mysql:8.0

The deployment involves running two primary containers:

MySQL Container:
- Name: joomla_db
- Database: joomla
- User: joomla_user
- The container is configured with a restart_policy of always.
Joomla Container:
- Name: joomla
- Linked to the MySQL container as mysql.
- The container is configured with a restart_policy of always.
- Port mapping exposes internal port 80 to host port 8080.

Docker Containers and Their Deployment¶

The application stack consists of three Docker services managed via specific configurations.

Database Container:

Name: joomla_db
Image: mysql:8.0
Environment Variables:
- MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: Set to the SSH password of the host.
- MYSQL_DATABASE: joomla
- MYSQL_USER: joomla_user
- MYSQL_PASSWORD: Set to the SSH password of the host.
Volumes: mysql_data mounted to /var/lib/mysql.
Ports: Host port 3306 mapped to container port 3306.

Application Container:

Name: joomla
Image: joomla:latest
Environment Variables:
- JOOMLA_DB_HOST: joomla_db
- JOOMLA_DB_NAME: joomla
- JOOMLA_DB_USER: joomla_user
- JOOMLA_DB_PASSWORD: Set to the SSH password of the host.
Volumes: joomla_data mounted to /var/www/html.
Ports: Host port 8080 mapped to container port 80.
Links: Connected to joomla_db with alias mysql.

Proxy Container Stack: The Nginx proxy with Certbot support is managed via a Docker Compose file located at /root/nginx/compose.yml.

Parameter	Value
Service Image	`jonasal/nginx-certbot:latest`
Restart Policy	`unless-stopped`
Network Mode	`host`
Email for Certbot	`[email protected]`
Environment File	`/data/nginx/nginx-certbot.env`
Secrets Volume	`nginx_secrets` mapped to `/etc/letsencrypt`
User Config Volume	`/data/nginx/user_conf.d` mapped to `/etc/nginx/user_conf.d`

Proxy Servers¶

Nginx is deployed as a reverse proxy with automatic SSL certificate management via Certbot.

Proxy Target: The proxy forwards traffic to the internal Joomla service at http://127.0.0.1:8080.
Configuration File: The site-specific configuration is located at /data/nginx/user_conf.d/joomla<SERVER_ID>.hostkey.in.conf.
Routing:
- Incoming requests to the FQDN on port 443 are routed to the Nginx container.
- The Nginx container proxies requests to the Joomla container on port 8080.
- SSL termination is handled by the Nginx container using certificates stored in the nginx_secrets volume.

Databases¶

Connection Method: The Joomla container connects to the database via the internal Docker network using the service name joomla_db (referenced as mysql via container link).
Storage Location: Database persistence is handled by the named Docker volume mysql_data, which maps to /var/lib/mysql within the joomla_db container.
Connection Settings:
- Host: joomla_db
- Database: joomla
- User: joomla_user
- Password: Matches the host's SSH password.

Permission Settings¶

Nginx Directory: /root/nginx is owned by root:root with permissions 0755.
Compose File: /root/nginx/compose.yml is owned by root:root with permissions 0644.
Container Ownership:
- The Nginx container volumes are mounted from the host root or data directories.
- Internal file permissions within the Joomla and MySQL containers are managed by their respective default configurations.

Available Ports for Connection¶

Port	Service	Description
`443`	Nginx	Secure HTTPS access to the Joomla application.
`8080`	Joomla	Internal service port (not directly accessible from external networks without proxy).
`3306`	MySQL	Internal database port (bound to the host for container communication).

Starting, Stopping, and Updating¶

Joomla and MySQL Containers: These containers are managed individually via Docker CLI commands on the host.

Start: docker start joomla and docker start joomla_db
Stop: docker stop joomla and docker stop joomla_db
Restart: docker restart joomla and docker restart joomla_db
Update Images: docker pull joomla:latest and docker pull mysql:8.0

Proxy Stack (Nginx/Certbot): The proxy stack is managed via Docker Compose in the /root/nginx directory.

Start/Update: docker compose up -d (executed in /root/nginx)
Stop: docker compose down (executed in /root/nginx)