mcloudllc/wordpress repository overview

⁠WordPress Custom Images - Production-Ready Suite

A collection of production-ready WordPress Docker images optimized for Kubernetes deployments with enhanced PHP settings, automation capabilities, security hardening, and dynamic hostname support.

⁠Available Images

⁠1. WordPress (Apache) - mcloudllc/wordpress:php8.4-apache

Production-ready WordPress with optimized PHP configuration based on official wordpress:php8.4-apache.

Key Features:

• ✅ Optimized PHP Settings - 512M memory limit, 64M upload limit, extended execution times
• ✅ OPcache Enabled - Significant performance improvement
• ✅ Production-Ready - Error logging configured, display errors disabled
• ✅ Health Checks - Built-in health monitoring for Kubernetes/Docker
• ✅ Security Hardened - Disabled dangerous PHP functions, security headers, proper permissions
• ✅ Dynamic URL Support - Accept any incoming hostname without hardcoding URLs
• ✅ External Configuration - PHP and Apache configs stored outside Dockerfile for easy customization

PHP Configuration:

Security Hardening:

Dynamic URL Environment Variables:

⁠2. WordPress CLI - mcloudllc/wordpress:cli

Enhanced WP-CLI image optimized for automation and management operations.

Key Features:

• ✅ High Memory Limit - 512M PHP memory for complex operations
• ✅ Extended Timeouts - 300s execution time for long-running tasks
• ✅ Additional Tools - Includes mysql-client, bash, jq, and less
• ✅ Automation-Ready - Pre-configured for non-interactive operations
• ✅ Alpine-Based - Small footprint, fast startup
• ✅ External Configuration - PHP config stored outside Dockerfile

Optimized For:

• Plugin/theme installations
• Database import/export operations
• Content migrations
• Automated backups
• Bulk operations

⁠3. WordPress Init Container - mcloudllc/wordpress:init

Specialized init container for automated WordPress installation and configuration in Kubernetes.

Key Features:

• ✅ Fully Automated - Zero-touch WordPress installation
• ✅ Database Ready Detection - Waits for database with configurable retry logic
• ✅ Idempotent Operations - Safe to run multiple times
• ✅ Plugin/Theme Management - Install and activate via environment variables
• ✅ Permission Management - Automatic file permission configuration
• ✅ Dynamic URL Plugin - Automatically installs dynamic URL support
• ✅ Security Configuration - Applies security hardening to wp-config.php

What It Does:

1. Validates required environment variables
2. Waits for database to be ready (with timeout and retry)
3. Downloads WordPress core files if needed
4. Creates wp-config.php with database credentials
5. Applies security configuration (DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT, FORCE_SSL_ADMIN, etc.)
6. Installs dynamic URL must-use plugin
7. Installs WordPress if not already installed
8. Manages plugins (install/activate)
9. Manages themes (install/activate)
10. Sets proper file permissions for www-data

⁠Dynamic Hostname Support

The images include a must-use plugin that enables WordPress to respond to any incoming hostname. This is useful for:

• Kubernetes deployments with multiple ingress hostnames
• Development environments with different domains
• Blue-green deployments where URLs change
• Multi-tenant setups serving multiple domains

⁠How It Works

1. The dynamic-url.php must-use plugin intercepts all URL generation
2. It detects the incoming hostname from HTTP_HOST or X-Forwarded-Host headers
3. It rewrites WordPress home_url() and site_url() to match the incoming request
4. HTTPS is detected from X-Forwarded-Proto header (for reverse proxy setups)

⁠Security

The plugin includes host validation to prevent host header injection attacks:

• Set WP_ALLOWED_HOSTS environment variable to restrict allowed hostnames
• Supports wildcards: *.example.com
• Always allows localhost and 127.0.0.1 for development

⁠Quick Start Examples

⁠Complete Stack with Docker Compose

version: '3.8'

services:
  wordpress:
    image: mcloudllc/wordpress:php8.4-apache
    ports:
      - "8080:80"
    environment:
      WORDPRESS_DB_HOST: db:3306
      WORDPRESS_DB_NAME: wordpress
      WORDPRESS_DB_USER: wordpress
      WORDPRESS_DB_PASSWORD: your_password
    volumes:
      - wordpress_data:/var/www/html
    depends_on:
      - db

  db:
    image: mariadb:12
    environment:
      MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: root_password
      MYSQL_DATABASE: wordpress
      MYSQL_USER: wordpress
      MYSQL_PASSWORD: your_password
    volumes:
      - db_data:/var/lib/mysql

volumes:
  wordpress_data:
  db_data:

⁠Kubernetes Deployment with Init Container

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: wordpress
spec:
  replicas: 2
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: wordpress
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: wordpress
    spec:
      initContainers:
      - name: wordpress-install
        image: mcloudllc/wordpress:init
        env:
        - name: WORDPRESS_DB_HOST
          value: mariadb:3306
        - name: WORDPRESS_DB_NAME
          value: wordpress
        - name: WORDPRESS_DB_USER
          valueFrom:
            secretKeyRef:
              name: wordpress-db
              key: username
        - name: WORDPRESS_DB_PASSWORD
          valueFrom:
            secretKeyRef:
              name: wordpress-db
              key: password
        - name: WORDPRESS_ADMIN_PASSWORD
          valueFrom:
            secretKeyRef:
              name: wordpress-admin
              key: password
        - name: WORDPRESS_SITE_URL
          value: https://mysite.com
        - name: WORDPRESS_TITLE
          value: "My Awesome Site"
        - name: WORDPRESS_PLUGINS
          value: "akismet:activate,jetpack:activate"
        - name: WORDPRESS_THEMES
          value: "twentytwentyfour"
        - name: WORDPRESS_ACTIVE_THEME
          value: "twentytwentyfour"
        - name: WP_DYNAMIC_URL
          value: "true"
        - name: WP_ALLOW_ANY_HOST
          value: "true"
        volumeMounts:
        - name: wordpress-data
          mountPath: /var/www/html
        resources:
          requests:
            cpu: 100m
            memory: 256Mi
          limits:
            cpu: 250m
            memory: 512Mi
      
      containers:
      - name: wordpress
        image: mcloudllc/wordpress:php8.4-apache
        ports:
        - containerPort: 80
        env:
        - name: WORDPRESS_DB_HOST
          value: mariadb:3306
        - name: WORDPRESS_DB_NAME
          value: wordpress
        - name: WORDPRESS_DB_USER
          valueFrom:
            secretKeyRef:
              name: wordpress-db
              key: username
        - name: WORDPRESS_DB_PASSWORD
          valueFrom:
            secretKeyRef:
              name: wordpress-db
              key: password
        volumeMounts:
        - name: wordpress-data
          mountPath: /var/www/html
        resources:
          requests:
            cpu: 250m
            memory: 512Mi
          limits:
            cpu: 500m
            memory: 1Gi
      
      volumes:
      - name: wordpress-data
        persistentVolumeClaim:
          claimName: wordpress-pvc

⁠WP-CLI Management Tasks

# Install a plugin
docker run --rm \
  -v $(pwd):/var/www/html \
  mcloudllc/wordpress:cli \
  plugin install akismet --activate

# Export database
docker run --rm \
  -v $(pwd):/var/www/html \
  -e WORDPRESS_DB_HOST=db:3306 \
  mcloudllc/wordpress:cli \
  db export backup.sql

# Search and replace URLs
docker run --rm \
  -v $(pwd):/var/www/html \
  mcloudllc/wordpress:cli \
  search-replace 'http://oldsite.com' 'https://newsite.com'

# Update all plugins
docker run --rm \
  -v $(pwd):/var/www/html \
  mcloudllc/wordpress:cli \
  plugin update --all

⁠Environment Variables

⁠WordPress Container

Standard WordPress environment variables:

• WORDPRESS_DB_HOST - Database host (required)
• WORDPRESS_DB_NAME - Database name (required)
• WORDPRESS_DB_USER - Database user (required)
• WORDPRESS_DB_PASSWORD - Database password (required)
• WORDPRESS_TABLE_PREFIX - Table prefix (default: wp_)
• WORDPRESS_DEBUG - Enable debug mode (default: 0)
• WORDPRESS_CONFIG_EXTRA - Additional wp-config.php defines

⁠Init Container

Required:

• WORDPRESS_DB_HOST - Database host and port (e.g., mariadb:3306)
• WORDPRESS_DB_NAME - Database name
• WORDPRESS_DB_USER - Database username
• WORDPRESS_DB_PASSWORD - Database password
• WORDPRESS_ADMIN_PASSWORD - WordPress admin password

Optional:

• WORDPRESS_SITE_URL - Site URL (default: http://localhost)
• WORDPRESS_TITLE - Site title (default: My WordPress Site)
• WORDPRESS_ADMIN_USER - Admin username (default: admin)
• WORDPRESS_ADMIN_EMAIL - Admin email (default: [email protected])
• WORDPRESS_PLUGINS - Plugins to install (format: plugin1:activate,plugin2:noactivate)
• WORDPRESS_THEMES - Themes to install (format: theme1,theme2)
• WORDPRESS_ACTIVE_THEME - Theme slug to activate
• WP_DYNAMIC_URL - Enable dynamic URL support (default: true)
• WP_ALLOW_ANY_HOST - Allow any incoming hostname (default: true)
• WP_ALLOWED_HOSTS - Comma-separated whitelist of allowed hostnames
• FORCE_SSL_ADMIN - Force HTTPS for admin (default: true)
• WP_DEBUG - Enable WordPress debug mode (default: false)
• WP_DEBUG_LOG - Enable debug logging (default: false)

⁠Image Tags

All images use the same repository with different tags: mcloudllc/wordpress:<tag>

⁠Use Cases

⁠Perfect For:

WordPress Container:

• 🎨 Media-heavy websites with large image/video uploads
• 🏗️ Sites using page builders (Elementor, Divi, WPBakery)
• 🛒 WooCommerce stores with extensive product catalogs
• 📱 Membership sites with user-generated content
• 🏢 Enterprise WordPress deployments

WP-CLI Container:

• 🔄 Automated backups and maintenance
• 📦 Plugin/theme mass updates
• 🔧 Database migrations and repairs
• 🎯 Content import/export operations
• 🤖 CI/CD pipeline integrations

Init Container:

• ☸️ Kubernetes StatefulSet deployments
• 🔁 Automated environment provisioning
• 🧪 Development/staging environment setup
• 📋 GitOps-based WordPress deployments
• 🚀 Zero-downtime WordPress installations

⁠Performance Benefits

• Faster Page Loads - OPcache eliminates the need to recompile PHP files on each request
• Higher Upload Limits - Support for media-rich content and large plugins/themes
• Better Stability - Increased memory limits prevent common WordPress errors
• Page Builder Compatible - Higher input variable limits support complex forms
• Automated Setup - Init container reduces deployment time from hours to minutes

⁠Health Check

The WordPress image includes a built-in health check:

HEALTHCHECK --interval=30s --timeout=10s --start-period=60s --retries=3 \
    CMD curl -f http://localhost/readme.html || exit 1

⁠Resource Recommendations

⁠WordPress Container

resources:
  requests:
    cpu: 250m
    memory: 512Mi
  limits:
    cpu: 500m
    memory: 1Gi

⁠Init Container

resources:
  requests:
    cpu: 100m
    memory: 256Mi
  limits:
    cpu: 250m
    memory: 512Mi

⁠Support & Documentation

• GitLab: mcloud-wordpress-images⁠
• Issues: Report issues on GitLab
• Base Images:
  • WordPress: wordpress:php8.4-apache⁠
  • WP-CLI: wordpress:cli⁠

⁠Security Scanning

All images can be scanned for vulnerabilities:

# Using Trivy
trivy image mcloudllc/wordpress:php8.4-apache
trivy image mcloudllc/wordpress:cli
trivy image mcloudllc/wordpress:init

# Using Docker Scout
docker scout cves mcloudllc/wordpress:php8.4-apache

⁠License

GPL-2.0 - Same as WordPress and WP-CLI

⁠Why Use These Images?

⁠Traditional WordPress Deployment ❌

• Manual WordPress installation required
• Complex bash scripts in deployment files
• Inconsistent PHP settings across environments
• Hard to test and debug
• Slow deployment process

⁠With This Image Suite ✅

• Automated installation with init container
• Optimized performance out of the box
• Clean deployment files (just env vars)
• Test independently before deployment
• Fast, reliable deployments every time
• Production-proven configurations
• Dynamic hostnames - no URL reconfiguration needed
• Security hardened - ready for production