basictheprogram/crossfire-phpbb3 repository overview

⁠Docker image for phpBB3

⁠What is phpBB?

phpBB is a popular open-source bulletin board that features robust messaging capabilities: flat message structure, subforums, topic split/merge/lock, user groups, full-text search, and attachments.

• Upstream: https://www.phpbb.com⁠
• Source: https://github.com/phpbb/phpbb⁠

⁠About this image

This image provides a Docker-based deployment for phpBB3 on Apache with PHP 8.4. It was originally created for the Crossfire Forums but the packaging is general-purpose and not specific to that deployment.

Key differences from the official phpBB distribution:

• Multi-stage build: extensions and PECL packages compiled in a cli builder stage; only runtime libraries copied into the apache final stage
• ImageMagick (via imagick PECL extension) and GD enabled
• opcache tuned for production
• mod_remoteip configured for reverse-proxy deployments

⁠TL;DR

docker run --name phpbb basictheprogram/crossfire-phpbb3:latest

⁠Prerequisites

Docker Engine 20.10 or later. Docker Compose v2 recommended.

⁠Get this image

Pull from Docker Hub:

docker pull basictheprogram/crossfire-phpbb3:latest

Pull a specific version:

docker pull basictheprogram/crossfire-phpbb3:[TAG]

Tags follow the phpBB3 upstream version (e.g., 3.3.15). Available tags: https://hub.docker.com/repository/docker/basictheprogram/crossfire-phpbb3/tags⁠

Build locally:

git clone https://github.com/crossfire-projects/docker-phpbb.git
cd docker-phpbb
docker build --build-arg AUTH_TOKEN=<token> -t crossfire-phpbb3 php/

⁠How to use this image

phpBB3 requires a MySQL or MariaDB database. Use Docker Compose to run both together:

docker compose up -d

⁠Persisting your application

Mount volumes for the database and phpBB3 data to survive container restarts:

services:
  mariadb:
    volumes:
      - /path/to/mariadb-data:/var/lib/mysql
  phpbb:
    volumes:
      - /path/to/phpbb-data:/var/www/html/phpBB3

Without mounted volumes, all data is lost when the container is removed.

⁠Configuration

⁠Environment variables

⁠Example: SMTP via Gmail

phpbb:
  environment:
    - PHPBB_SMTP_HOST=smtp.gmail.com
    - PHPBB_SMTP_PORT_NUMBER=587
    - [email protected]
    - PHPBB_SMTP_PASSWORD=your_app_password
    - PHPBB_SMTP_PROTOCOL=tls

⁠Logging

Container logs go to stdout:

docker compose logs phpbb

⁠Maintenance

⁠Backup

docker compose stop phpbb
docker run --rm \
  -v /path/to/phpbb-backups:/backups \
  --volumes-from phpbb \
  busybox cp -a /var/www/html/phpBB3 /backups/latest

⁠Upgrade

1. Pull the new image tag
2. Stop the running container
3. Take a backup (see above)
4. Update the image tag in compose.yml
5. docker compose up -d

⁠Extend this image

FROM basictheprogram/crossfire-phpbb3:latest
USER 0
RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends vim \
    && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
USER www-data

⁠Third-party software

This image downloads and ships phpBB3, which is distributed under the GNU General Public License, Version 2⁠.

• phpBB3 upstream source: https://github.com/phpbb/phpbb⁠
• phpBB3 license: https://github.com/phpbb/phpbb/blob/master/LICENSE⁠

The GPL v2 requires that the phpBB3 source be made available to recipients of this image. The unmodified phpBB3 source is available at the upstream GitHub repository linked above. This project's own files (Dockerfile, scripts, configuration) are licensed separately under the MIT License — see LICENSE.md⁠.

⁠Issues

File an issue at https://github.com/crossfire-projects/docker-phpbb/issues⁠.