Docker Image for Friendica

This repository holds the official Docker Image for Friendica

What is Friendica?

Friendica is a decentralised communications platform that integrates social communication. Our platform links to independent social projects and corporate services.

How to use this image

The images are designed to be used in a micro-service environment. There are two types of the image you can choose from.

The apache tag contains a full Friendica installation including an apache web server. It is designed to be easy to use and gets you running pretty fast. This is also the default for the latest tag and version tags that are not further specified.

The second option is a fpm container. It is based on the php-fpm image and runs a fastCGI-Process that serves your Friendica server. To use this image it must be combined with any Webserver that can proxy the http requests to the FastCGI-port of the container.

(Admin-E-Mail: root@friendica.local)

Using the apache image

You need at least one other mariadb/mysql-container to link it to Friendica.

The apache image contains a webserver and exposes port 80. To start the container type:

$ docker run -d -p 8080:80 --link some-mysql:mysql friendica/server

Now you can access the Friendica installation wizard at http://localhost:8080/ from your host system.

Using the fpm image

To use the fpm image you need an additional web server that can proxy http-request to the fpm-port of the container. For fpm connection this container exposes port 9000. In most cases you might want use another container or your host as proxy. If you use your host you can address your Friendica container directly on port 9000. If you use another container, make sure that you add them to the same docker network (via docker run --network <NAME> ... or a docker-compose file). In both cases you don't want to map the fpm port to you host.

$ docker run -d friendica/server:fpm

As the fastCGI-Process is not capable of serving static files (style sheets, images, ...) the webserver needs access to these files. This can be achieved with the volumes-from option. You can find more information in the docker-compose section.

Using the cron job

There are three options to enable the cron-job for Friendica:

• Using the default Image and activate the cron-job (see Installation, sector Activating scheduled tasks)
• Using the default image (apache, fpm, fpm-alpine) and creating two container (one for cron and one for the main app)
• Using one of the additional, prepared cron dockerfiles

Environment variables

This is the full list of all possible environment variables used for this image:

Common

• MAILNAME E-Mail address of the administrator (required)
• TZ The default localization of the Friendica server (Default: America/Los_Angeles)
• LANGUAGE The default language of the Friendica server (Default: en)
• SITENAME The default name of the Friendica server (Default: Friendica Social Network )
• VALIDATION The default setting if url/emails are getting validated (Default: true)
• AUTOINSTALL if true, the automatic configuration will start (Default: false)

SMTP/Mail

• SMTP address of the SMTP Mail-Gateway (required - Default: localhost)
• SMTP_FROM sender user-part of the address (Default: no-reply - e.g. no-reply@friendica.local)
• SMTP_AUTH_USER Username for the SMTP Mail-Gateway (Default: empty)
• SMTP_AUTH_PASS Password for the SMTP Mail-Gateway (Default: empty)
• SMTP_AUTH_METHOD Authentication method for the SMTP Mail-Gateway (Default: empty/plain text)

Database (required)

• MYSQL_USERNAME Username for the database user using mysql.
• MYSQL_USER Username for the database user using mariadb.
• MYSQL_PASSWORD Password for the database user using mysql / mariadb.
• MYSQL_DATABASE Name of the database using mysql / mariadb.
• MYSQL_HOST Hostname of the database server using mysql / mariadb.
• MYSQL_PORT Port of the database server using mysql / mariadb.

Administrator account

Because Friendica links the administrator account to a specific mail address, you have to set a valid address for MAILNAME.

Mail settings

The binary ssmtp is used for the mail() support of Friendica.

You have to set the --hostname/-h parameter correctly to use the right domainname for the mail() command.

You have to set a valid SMTP-MTA for the SMTP environment variable to enable mail support in Friendica. A valid SMTP-MTA would be, for example, mx.example.org.

Database settings

You have to link a running database container, e. g. --link my-mysql:mysql, and then use mysql as the database host on setup.

Persistent data

The Friendica installation and all data beyond what lives in the database (file uploads, etc) is stored in the unnamed docker volume volume /var/www/html. The docker daemon will store that data within the docker directory /var/lib/docker/volumes/.... That means your data is saved even if the container crashes, is stopped or deleted.

To make your data persistent to upgrading and get access for backups is using named docker volume or mount a host folder. To achieve this you need one volume for your database container and Friendica.

Friendica:

• /var/www/html/ folder where all Friendica data lives

$ docker run -d \
  -v friendica-vol-1:/var/www/html \
  friendica/server

Database:

• /var/lib/mysql MySQL / MariaDB Data

$ docker run -d \
  -v mysql-vol-1:/var/lib/mysql \
  mariadb

Automatic installation

The Friendica image supports auto configuration via environment variables. You can preconfigure everything that is asked on the install page on first run. To enable the automatic installation, you have to set AUTOINSTALL to true.

Maintenance of the image

Updating to a newer version

There are differences between the stable and the develop branches.

They have both in common that normally we do not automatically overwrite your working directory with the new version. Instead you need to explicit run friendica update for the node for updating files&database.

Updating stable

You have to pull the latest image from the hub (docker pull friendica).

Updating develop

You don't need to pull the image for each commit in friendica. Instead you can just update your node with executing friendica update on the node. Example:

$ docker exec -ti friendica_running_node friendica update

It will clone the latest Friendica version and copy it to your working directory.

The friendica CLI

To make the usage of the Docker images smooth, we created a little CLI. It wraps the common commands for Friendica and adds new commands.

You can call it with

$ docker exec -ti friendica_running_node friendica <command>

Commands:

• console Executes an command in the Friendica console (bin/console.php wrapper)
• composer Executes the composer.phar executable for Friendica (bin/composer.phar wrapper)
• install Installs Friendica on a empty environment (gets called automatically during first start)
• update Updates Friendica on a existing environment

Running this image with docker-compose

The easiest way to get a fully featured and functional setup is using a docker-compose file. There are too many different possibilities to setup your system, so here are only some examples what you have to look for.

At first make sure you have chosen the right base image (fpm or apache) and added the features you wanted (see below). In every case you want to add a database container and docker volumes to get easy access to your persistent data. When you want your server reachable from the internet adding HTTPS-encryption is mandatory! See below for more information.

Base version - apache

This version will use the apache image and add a mariaDB container. The volumes are set to keep your data persistent. This setup provides no ssl encryption and is intended to run behind a proxy.

Make sure to set the variable MYSQL_PASSWORD before run this setup.

version: '2'

services:
  db:
    image: mariadb
    restart: always
    volumes:
      - db:/var/lib/mysql
    environment:
      - MYSQL_USER=friendica
      - MYSQL_PASSWORD=
      - MYSQL_DATABASE=friendica
      - MYSQL_RANDOM_ROOT_PASSWORD=yes

  app:
    image: friendica/server
    restart: always
    volumes:
      - friendica:/var/www/html
    ports:
      - "8080:80"
    environment:
      - MYSQL_HOST=db
      - MYSQL_PORT=3306
      - MYSQL_USER=friendica
      - MYSQL_PASSWORD=
      - MYSQL_DATABASE=friendica
      - MAILNAME=root@friendica.local
    hostname: friendica.local
    depends_on:
      - db

volumes:
  db:
  friendica:

Then run docker-compose up -d, now you can access Friendica at http://localhost:8080/ from your system.

Base version - FPM

When using the FPM image you need another container that acts as web server on port 80 and proxies requests to the Friendica container. In this example a simple nginx container is combined with the Friendica-fpm image and a MariaDB database container. The data is stored in docker volumes. The nginx container also need access to static files from your Friendica installation. It gets access to all the volumes mounted to Friendica via the volumes_from option. The configuration for nginx is stored in the configuration file nginx.conf that is mounted into the container.

An example can be found in the examples section.

As this setup does not include encryption it should to be run behind a proxy.

Prerequisites for this example:

• Make sure to set the variable MYSQL_PASSWORD before you run the setup.
• Create a nginx.conf in the same directory as the docker-compose.yml file (take it from example)

version: '2'

services:
  db:
    image: mariadb
    restart: always
    volumes:
      - db:/var/lib/mysql
    environment:
      - MYSQL_USER=friendica
      - MYSQL_PASSWORD=
      - MYSQL_DATABASE=friendica
      - MYSQL_RANDOM_ROOT_PASSWORD=yes

  app:
    image: friendica/server:fpm
    restart: always
    volumes:
      - friendica:/var/www/html    
    environment:
      - MYSQL_HOST=db
      - MYSQL_PORT=3306
      - MYSQL_USER=friendica
      - MYSQL_PASSWORD=
      - MYSQL_DATABASE=friendica
      - MAILNAME=root@friendica.local
    hostname: friendica.local
    networks:
      - proxy-tier
      - default 

  web:
    image: nginx
    ports:
      - 8080:80
    links:
      - app
    volumes:
      - ./nginx.conf:/etc/nginx/nginx.conf:ro    
    restart: always
    networks:
      - proxy-tier  

volumes:
  db:
  friendica:

networks:
  proxy-tier:

Then run docker-compose up -d, now you can access Friendica at http://localhost:8080/ from your system.

Questions / Issues

If you got any questions or problems using the image, please visit our Github Repository and write an issue.