phpBB packaged by Bitnami

What is phpBB?

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

Overview of phpBB

Trademarks: This software listing is packaged by Bitnami. The respective trademarks mentioned in the offering are owned by the respective companies, and use of them does not imply any affiliation or endorsement.

TL;DR

$ curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bitnami/bitnami-docker-phpbb/master/docker-compose.yml > docker-compose.yml
$ docker-compose up -d

Warning: This quick setup is only intended for development environments. You are encouraged to change the insecure default credentials and check out the available configuration options in the Environment Variables section for a more secure deployment.

Why use Bitnami Images?

Bitnami closely tracks upstream source changes and promptly publishes new versions of this image using our automated systems.
With Bitnami images the latest bug fixes and features are available as soon as possible.
Bitnami containers, virtual machines and cloud images use the same components and configuration approach - making it easy to switch between formats based on your project needs.
All our images are based on minideb a minimalist Debian based container image which gives you a small base container image and the familiarity of a leading Linux distribution.
All Bitnami images available in Docker Hub are signed with Docker Content Trust (DCT). You can use DOCKER_CONTENT_TRUST=1 to verify the integrity of the images.
Bitnami container images are released on a regular basis with the latest distribution packages available.

How to deploy phpBB in Kubernetes?

Deploying Bitnami applications as Helm Charts is the easiest way to get started with our applications on Kubernetes. Read more about the installation in the Bitnami phpBB Chart GitHub repository.

Bitnami containers can be used with Kubeapps for deployment and management of Helm Charts in clusters.

Why use a non-root container?

Non-root container images add an extra layer of security and are generally recommended for production environments. However, because they run as a non-root user, privileged tasks are typically off-limits. Learn more about non-root containers in our docs.

Supported tags and respective `Dockerfile` links

Learn more about the Bitnami tagging policy and the difference between rolling tags and immutable tags in our documentation page.

3, 3-debian-11, 3.3.8, 3.3.8-debian-11-r2, latest (3/debian-11/Dockerfile)

Subscribe to project updates by watching the bitnami/phpbb GitHub repo.

Prerequisites

To run this application you need Docker Engine 1.10.0. Docker Compose is recomended with a version 1.6.0 or later.

Get this image

The recommended way to get the Bitnami phpBB Docker Image is to pull the prebuilt image from the Docker Hub Registry.

$ docker pull bitnami/phpbb:latest

To use a specific version, you can pull a versioned tag. You can view the list of available versions in the Docker Hub Registry.

$ docker pull bitnami/phpbb:[TAG]

If you wish, you can also build the image yourself.

$ docker build -t bitnami/phpbb:latest 'https://github.com/bitnami/bitnami-docker-phpbb.git#master:3/debian-11'

How to use this image

phpBB requires access to a MySQL or MariaDB database to store information. We'll use the Bitnami Docker Image for MariaDB for the database requirements.

Run the application using Docker Compose

The main folder of this repository contains a functional docker-compose.yml file. Run the application using it as shown below:

$ curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bitnami/bitnami-docker-phpbb/master/docker-compose.yml > docker-compose.yml
$ docker-compose up -d

Using the Docker Command Line

If you want to run the application manually instead of using docker-compose, these are the basic steps you need to run:

Step 1: Create a network

$ docker network create phpbb-network

Step 2: Create a volume for MariaDB persistence and create a MariaDB container

$ docker volume create --name mariadb_data
$ docker run -d --name mariadb \
  --env ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes \
  --env MARIADB_USER=bn_phpbb \
  --env MARIADB_PASSWORD=bitnami \
  --env MARIADB_DATABASE=bitnami_phpbb \
  --network phpbb-network \
  --volume mariadb_data:/bitnami/mariadb \
  bitnami/mariadb:latest

Step 3: Create volumes for phpBB persistence and launch the container

$ docker volume create --name phpbb_data
$ docker run -d --name phpbb \
  -p 8080:8080 -p 8443:8443 \
  --env ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes \
  --env PHPBB_DATABASE_USER=bn_phpbb \
  --env PHPBB_DATABASE_PASSWORD=bitnami \
  --env PHPBB_DATABASE_NAME=bitnami_phpbb \
  --network phpbb-network \
  --volume phpbb_data:/bitnami/phpbb \
  bitnami/phpbb:latest

Access your application at http://your-ip/

Persisting your application

If you remove the container all your data will be lost, and the next time you run the image the database will be reinitialized. To avoid this loss of data, you should mount a volume that will persist even after the container is removed.

For persistence you should mount a directory at the /bitnami/phpbb path. If the mounted directory is empty, it will be initialized on the first run. Additionally you should mount a volume for persistence of the MariaDB data](https://github.com/bitnami/bitnami-docker-mariadb#persisting-your-database).

The above examples define the Docker volumes named mariadb_data and phpbb_data. The phpBB application state will persist as long as volumes are not removed.

To avoid inadvertent removal of volumes, you can mount host directories as data volumes. Alternatively you can make use of volume plugins to host the volume data.

Mount host directories as data volumes with Docker Compose

This requires a minor change to the docker-compose.yml file present in this repository:

   mariadb:
     ...
     volumes:
-      - 'mariadb_data:/bitnami/mariadb'
+      - /path/to/mariadb-persistence:/bitnami/mariadb
   ...
   phpbb:
     ...
     volumes:
-      - 'phpbb_data:/bitnami/phpbb'
+      - /path/to/phpbb-persistence:/bitnami/phpbb
   ...
-volumes:
-  mariadb_data:
-    driver: local
-  phpbb_data:
-    driver: local

NOTE: As this is a non-root container, the mounted files and directories must have the proper permissions for the UID 1001.

Mount host directories as data volumes using the Docker command line

Step 1: Create a network (if it does not exist)

$ docker network create phpbb-network

Step 2. Create a MariaDB container with host volume

$ docker run -d --name mariadb \
  --env ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes \
  --env MARIADB_USER=bn_phpbb \
  --env MARIADB_PASSWORD=bitnami \
  --env MARIADB_DATABASE=bitnami_phpbb \
  --network phpbb-network \
  --volume /path/to/mariadb-persistence:/bitnami/mariadb \
  bitnami/mariadb:latest

Step 3. Create the phpBB container with host volumes

$ docker run -d --name phpbb \
  -p 8080:8080 -p 8443:8443 \
  --env ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes \
  --env PHPBB_DATABASE_USER=bn_phpbb \
  --env PHPBB_DATABASE_PASSWORD=bitnami \
  --env PHPBB_DATABASE_NAME=bitnami_phpbb \
  --network phpbb-network \
  --volume /path/to/phpbb-persistence:/bitnami/phpbb \
  bitnami/phpbb:latest

Configuration

Environment variables

When you start the phpBB image, you can adjust the configuration of the instance by passing one or more environment variables either on the docker-compose file or on the docker run command line. If you want to add a new environment variable:

For docker-compose add the variable name and value under the application section in the docker-compose.yml file present in this repository:

phpbb:
  ...
  environment:
    - PHPBB_PASSWORD=my_password
  ...

For manual execution add a --env option with each variable and value:

$ docker run -d --name phpbb -p 80:8080 -p 443:8443 \
  --env PHPBB_PASSWORD=my_password \
  --network phpbb-tier \
  --volume /path/to/phpbb-persistence:/bitnami \
  bitnami/phpbb:latest

Available environment variables:

User and Site configuration

APACHE_HTTP_PORT_NUMBER: Port used by Apache for HTTP. Default: 8080
APACHE_HTTPS_PORT_NUMBER: Port used by Apache for HTTPS. Default: 8443
PHPBB_USERNAME: phpBB application username. Default: user
PHPBB_PASSWORD: phpBB application password. Default: bitnami
PHPBB_EMAIL: phpBB application email. Default: [email protected]
PHPBB_FORUM_NAME: Forum Name. Default: My forum
PHPBB_FORUM_DESCRIPTION: Forum Description. Default: A little text to describe your forum
PHPBB_HOST: phpBB application host. No defaults.
PHPBB_SKIP_BOOTSTRAP: Whether to skip performing the initial bootstrapping for the application. Default: no
PHPBB_COOKIE_SECURE: Have secure cookies enabled. Default: no
PHPBB_FORUM_SERVER_PROTOCOL: Forum server protocol for the URL generation. Default: http://
PHPBB_DISABLE_SESSION_VALIDATION: Disable session validation. This is for phpBB to work in Kubernetes installations. Default: false

Use an existing database

PHPBB_DATABASE_HOST: Hostname for MariaDB server. Default: mariadb
PHPBB_DATABASE_PORT_NUMBER: Port used by MariaDB server. Default: 3306
PHPBB_DATABASE_NAME: Database name that phpBB will use to connect with the database. Default: bitnami_phpbb
PHPBB_DATABASE_USER: Database user that phpBB will use to connect with the database. Default: bn_phpbb
PHPBB_DATABASE_PASSWORD: Database password that phpBB will use to connect with the database. No defaults.
ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD: It can be used to allow blank passwords. Default: no

Create a database for phpBB using mysql-client

MYSQL_CLIENT_FLAVOR: SQL database flavor. Valid values: mariadb or mysql. Default: mariadb.
MYSQL_CLIENT_DATABASE_HOST: Hostname for MariaDB server. Default: mariadb
MYSQL_CLIENT_DATABASE_PORT_NUMBER: Port used by MariaDB server. Default: 3306
MYSQL_CLIENT_DATABASE_ROOT_USER: Database admin user. Default: root
MYSQL_CLIENT_DATABASE_ROOT_PASSWORD: Database password for the database admin user. No defaults.
MYSQL_CLIENT_CREATE_DATABASE_NAME: New database to be created by the mysql client module. No defaults.
MYSQL_CLIENT_CREATE_DATABASE_USER: New database user to be created by the mysql client module. No defaults.
MYSQL_CLIENT_CREATE_DATABASE_PASSWORD: Database password for the MYSQL_CLIENT_CREATE_DATABASE_USER user. No defaults.
MYSQL_CLIENT_CREATE_DATABASE_CHARACTER_SET: Character set to use for the new database. No defaults.
MYSQL_CLIENT_CREATE_DATABASE_COLLATE: Database collation to use for the new database. No defaults.
MYSQL_CLIENT_CREATE_DATABASE_PRIVILEGES: Database privileges to grant for the user specified in MYSQL_CLIENT_CREATE_DATABASE_USER to the database specified in MYSQL_CLIENT_CREATE_DATABASE_NAME. No defaults.
MYSQL_CLIENT_ENABLE_SSL_WRAPPER: Whether to force SSL connections to the database via the mysql CLI tool. Useful for applications that rely on the CLI instead of APIs. Default: no
MYSQL_CLIENT_ENABLE_SSL: Whether to force SSL connections for the database. Default: no
MYSQL_CLIENT_SSL_CA_FILE: Path to the SSL CA file for the new database. No defaults
MYSQL_CLIENT_SSL_CERT_FILE: Path to the SSL CA file for the new database. No defaults
MYSQL_CLIENT_SSL_KEY_FILE: Path to the SSL CA file for the new database. No defaults
ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD: It can be used to allow blank passwords. Default: no

SMTP Configuration

To configure phpBB to send email using SMTP you can set the following environment variables:

PHPBB_SMTP_HOST: SMTP host.
PHPBB_SMTP_PORT: SMTP port.
PHPBB_SMTP_USER: SMTP account user.
PHPBB_SMTP_PASSWORD: SMTP account password.
PHPBB_SMTP_PROTOCOL: SMTP protocol.

PHP configuration

PHP_ENABLE_OPCACHE: Enable OPcache for PHP scripts. No default.
PHP_EXPOSE_PHP: Enables HTTP header with PHP version. No default.
PHP_MAX_EXECUTION_TIME: Maximum execution time for PHP scripts. No default.
PHP_MAX_INPUT_TIME: Maximum input time for PHP scripts. No default.
PHP_MAX_INPUT_VARS: Maximum amount of input variables for PHP scripts. No default.
PHP_MEMORY_LIMIT: Memory limit for PHP scripts. Default: 256M
PHP_POST_MAX_SIZE: Maximum size for PHP POST requests. No default.
PHP_UPLOAD_MAX_FILESIZE: Maximum file size for PHP uploads. No default.

Example

This would be an example of SMTP configuration using a Gmail account:

Modify the docker-compose.yml file present in this repository:

  phpbb:
    ...
    environment:
      - PHPBB_DATABASE_USER=bn_phpbb
      - PHPBB_DATABASE_NAME=bitnami_phpbb
      - ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes
      - PHPBB_SMTP_HOST=smtp.gmail.com
      - PHPBB_SMTP_PORT=587
      - [email protected]
      - PHPBB_SMTP_PASSWORD=your_password
  ...

For manual execution:

$ docker run -d --name phpbb -p 80:8080 -p 443:8443 \
  --env PHPBB_DATABASE_USER=bn_phpbb \
  --env PHPBB_DATABASE_NAME=bitnami_phpbb \
  --env PHPBB_SMTP_HOST=smtp.gmail.com \
  --env PHPBB_SMTP_PORT=587 \
  --env [email protected] \
  --env PHPBB_SMTP_PASSWORD=your_password \
  --network phpbb-tier \
  --volume /path/to/phpbb-persistence:/bitnami \
  bitnami/phpbb:latest

Logging

The Bitnami phpBB Docker image sends the container logs to stdout. To view the logs:

$ docker logs phpbb

Or using Docker Compose:

$ docker-compose logs phpbb

You can configure the containers logging driver using the --log-driver option if you wish to consume the container logs differently. In the default configuration docker uses the json-file driver.

Maintenance

Backing up your container

To backup your data, configuration and logs, follow these simple steps:

Step 1: Stop the currently running container

$ docker stop phpbb

Or using Docker Compose:

$ docker-compose stop phpbb

Step 2: Run the backup command

We need to mount two volumes in a container we will use to create the backup: a directory on your host to store the backup in, and the volumes from the container we just stopped so we can access the data.

$ docker run --rm -v /path/to/phpbb-backups:/backups --volumes-from phpbb busybox \
  cp -a /bitnami/phpbb /backups/latest

Restoring a backup

Restoring a backup is as simple as mounting the backup as volumes in the containers.

For the MariaDB database container:

 $ docker run -d --name mariadb \
   ...
-  --volume /path/to/mariadb-persistence:/bitnami/mariadb \
+  --volume /path/to/mariadb-backups/latest:/bitnami/mariadb \
   bitnami/mariadb:latest

For the phpBB container:

 $ docker run -d --name phpbb \
   ...
-  --volume /path/to/phpbb-persistence:/bitnami/phpbb \
+  --volume /path/to/phpbb-backups/latest:/bitnami/phpbb \
   bitnami/phpbb:latest

Upgrade this image

Bitnami provides up-to-date versions of MariaDB and phpBB, including security patches, soon after they are made upstream. We recommend that you follow these steps to upgrade your container. We will cover here the upgrade of the phpBB container. For the MariaDB upgrade see: https://github.com/bitnami/bitnami-docker-mariadb/blob/master/README.md#upgrade-this-image

Step 1: Get the updated image

$ docker pull bitnami/phpbb:latest

Step 2: Stop the running container

Stop the currently running container using the command

$ docker-compose stop phpbb

Step 3: Take a snapshot of the application state

Follow the steps in Backing up your container to take a snapshot of the current application state.

Step 4: Remove the currently running container

Remove the currently running container by executing the following command:

docker-compose rm -v phpbb

Step 5: Run the new image

Update the image tag in docker-compose.yml and re-create your container with the new image:

$ docker-compose up -d

Customize this image

The Bitnami phpBB Docker image is designed to be extended so it can be used as the base image for your custom web applications.

Extend this image

Before extending this image, please note there are certain configuration settings you can modify using the original image:

Settings that can be adapted using environment variables. For instance, you can change the ports used by Apache for HTTP and HTTPS, by setting the environment variables APACHE_HTTP_PORT_NUMBER and APACHE_HTTPS_PORT_NUMBER respectively.
Adding custom virtual hosts.
Replacing the 'httpd.conf' file.
Using custom SSL certificates.

If your desired customizations cannot be covered using the methods mentioned above, extend the image. To do so, create your own image using a Dockerfile with the format below:

FROM bitnami/phpbb
## Put your customizations below
...

Here is an example of extending the image with the following modifications:

Install the vim editor
Modify the Apache configuration file
Modify the ports used by Apache

FROM bitnami/phpbb

## Change user to perform privileged actions
USER 0
## Install 'vim'
RUN install_packages vim
## Revert to the original non-root user
USER 1001

## Enable mod_ratelimit module
RUN sed -i -r 's/#LoadModule ratelimit_module/LoadModule ratelimit_module/' /opt/bitnami/apache/conf/httpd.conf

## Modify the ports used by Apache by default
# It is also possible to change these environment variables at runtime
ENV APACHE_HTTP_PORT_NUMBER=8181
ENV APACHE_HTTPS_PORT_NUMBER=8143
EXPOSE 8181 8143

Based on the extended image, you can update the docker-compose.yml file present in this repository to add other features:

   phpbb:
-    image: bitnami/phpbb:latest
+    build: .
     ports:
-      - '80:8080'
-      - '443:8443'
+      - '80:8181'
+      - '443:8143'
     environment:
+      - PHP_MEMORY_LIMIT=512m
     ...

Notable Changes

3.3.1-debian-10-r44

The size of the container image has been decreased.
The configuration logic is now based on Bash scripts in the rootfs/ folder.
The phpBB container image has been migrated to a "non-root" user approach. Previously the container ran as the root user and the Apache daemon was started as the daemon user. From now on, both the container and the Apache daemon run as user 1001. You can revert this behavior by changing USER 1001 to USER root in the Dockerfile, or user: root in docker-compose.yml. Consequences:
- The HTTP/HTTPS ports exposed by the container are now 8080/8443 instead of 80/443.
- Backwards compatibility is not guaranteed when data is persisted using docker or docker-compose. We highly recommend migrating the phpBB site by exporting its content, and importing it on a new phpBB container. Follow the steps in Backing up your container and Restoring a backup to migrate the data between the old and new container.

To upgrade a previous Bitnami phpBB container image, which did not support non-root, the easiest way is to start the new image as a root user and updating the port numbers. Modify your docker-compose.yml file as follows:

       - ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes
+    user: root
     ports:
-      - '80:80'
-      - '443:443'
+      - '80:8080'
+      - '443:8443'
     volumes:

3.3.1-debian-10-r18

The PHP version has been updated from 7.2 to 7.3

3.2.7-debian-9-r19 and 3.2.7-ol-7-r30

This image has been adapted so it's easier to customize. See the Customize this image section for more information.
The Apache configuration volume (/bitnami/apache) has been deprecated, and support for this feature will be dropped in the near future. Until then, the container will enable the Apache configuration from that volume if it exists. By default, and if the configuration volume does not exist, the configuration files will be regenerated each time the container is created. Users wanting to apply custom Apache configuration files are advised to mount a volume for the configuration at /opt/bitnami/apache/conf, or mount specific configuration files individually.
The PHP configuration volume (/bitnami/php) has been deprecated, and support for this feature will be dropped in the near future. Until then, the container will enable the PHP configuration from that volume if it exists. By default, and if the configuration volume does not exist, the configuration files will be regenerated each time the container is created. Users wanting to apply custom PHP configuration files are advised to mount a volume for the configuration at /opt/bitnami/php/conf, or mount specific configuration files individually.
Enabling custom Apache certificates by placing them at /opt/bitnami/apache/certs has been deprecated, and support for this functionality will be dropped in the near future. Users wanting to enable custom certificates are advised to mount their certificate files on top of the preconfigured ones at /certs.

Contributing

We'd love for you to contribute to this container. You can request new features by creating an issue, or submit a pull request with your contribution.

Issues

If you encountered a problem running this container, you can file an issue. Be sure to include the following information in your issue:

Host OS and version
Docker version (docker version)
Output of docker info
Version of this container
The command you used to run the container, and any relevant output you saw (masking any sensitive information)

Community supported solution

Please, note this asset is a community-supported solution. This means that the Bitnami team is not actively working on new features/improvements nor providing support through GitHub Issues. Any new issue will stay open for 20 days to allow the community to contribute, after 15 days without activity the issue will be marked as stale being closed after 5 days.

The Bitnami team will review any PR that is created, feel free to create a PR if you find any issue or want to implement a new feature.

New versions and releases cadence are not going to be affected. Once a new version is released in the upstream project, the Bitnami container image will be updated to use the latest version, supporting the different branches supported by the upstream project as usual.

License

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.

Cheap and reliable Node.js hosting starts at $3/month, and $1/month static HTML hosting

bitnami / bitnami-docker-phpbb

Programming Languages

Labels

Projects that are alternatives of or similar to bitnami-docker-phpbb