There are at least a few cases when installing the full Apache, PHP and MariaDB is not a convenient option:

• developing a single project or just a few number of them
• testing a project with multiple versions of Apache, PHP and MariaDB
• having a HTTP server or a database configured for development running all the time may be a security issue

Quick start

Project structure

There are three directories:

• scripts for initializing the database
• database for the database files
• web for all other files

The project will be available at http://localhost:8080

The containers

Download official containers:

podman pull docker.io/library/mariadb:latest
podman pull docker.io/library/php:8.1-apache

The pod

Create a pod with the official containers (you should change dbRoot to a stronger password):

podman pod create --name camp --publish 8080:80 --publish 3306:3306

podman run --detach --pod camp --name database \
    --env MARIADB_ROOT_PASSWORD=dbRoot \
    --volume "$PWD"/database:/var/lib/mysql:Z \
    mariadb:latest

podman run --detach --pod camp --name webnphp \
    --volume "$PWD"/web:/var/www/html:Z \
    php:8.1-apache

Make sure pdo and pdo_mysql PHP modules are installed (php:8.1-apache does not have pdo_mysql installed by default). To add them, execute:

# install pdo_mysql then restart apache
podman exec webnphp /bin/bash -c 'docker-php-ext-install pdo pdo_mysql; apache2ctl restart'
# check installed PDO modules for PHP
podman exec webnphp /bin/bash -c 'php -m | grep -i pdo'

Alternatively, connect to the container with

podman exec -it webnphp /bin/bash

and install the missing module by running inside the container:

docker-php-ext-install pdo pdo_mysql
apache2ctl restart
php -m | grep -i pdo
exit

Note: you could check the installed PHP modules by running php -m or php -i inside the container.

Create the database

If you have a script to create your database, let’s say scripts/createDatabase.sql, you can use a container to create your database:

podman run -it --rm --pod camp \
    --volume "$PWD"/scripts:/root/scripts:Z \
    mariadb:latest mysql -h 127.0.0.1 --user="root" --password="dbRoot" --execute='source /root/scripts/createDatabase.sql'

Alternatively you can use a container to create the database:

podman run -it --rm --pod camp \
    mariadb:latest mysql -h 127.0.0.1 -u root -p

by running your version of this createDatabase.sql script in mysql’s prompt:

create database MyTestDatabase;
grant all privileges on MyTestDatabase.* TO 'dbUser'@'localhost' identified by 'dbPass';
grant all privileges on MyTestDatabase.* TO 'dbUser'@'%' identified by 'dbPass';
flush privileges;
quit;

Initialize the database content

If you have a script to initialize your database, let’s say scripts/initializeDatabase.sql, you can use a container to initialize your database:

podman run -it --rm --pod camp \
    --volume "$PWD"/scripts:/root/scripts:Z \
    mariadb:latest mysql -h 127.0.0.1 \
        --user='dbUser' \
        --password='dbPass' \
        --database='MyTestDatabase' \
        --execute='source /root/scripts/initializeDatabase.sql'

Working with the database

To work with your database you can use a container with MySQL client started as dbUser:

podman run -it --rm --pod camp \
    mariadb:latest mysql -h 127.0.0.1 -u dbUser -p

and manually input commands or you can launch a container with a bind mount to the scripts directory:

podman run -it --rm --pod camp \
    --volume "$PWD"/scripts:/root/scripts:Z \
    mariadb:latest mysql -h 127.0.0.1 \
        --user='dbUser' \
        --password='dbPass' \
        --database='MyTestDatabase' \

and execute SQL scripts from that directory like:

source /root/scripts/initializeDatabase.sql

Utils

See the logs generated by those containers with:

• podman logs webnphp
• podman logs database

To start, stop, restart or remove the pod use:

• podman pod start camp
• podman pod stop camp
• podman pod restart camp
• podman pod rm camp

Short note about bind mount and SELinux labeling:

• use :z when the volume will be used by multiple containers in parallel.
• use :Z to bind the volume only to one container. If you attach it to multiple containers only the last one will be able to access it.