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I made a Docker image for my Laravel project. If I create a container for this it works fine. However if my image is updated I need to replace the container. After that the upload data and files in my storage/app/public folder are lost.
That is an undesirable effect. I do want to refresh the entire laravel project when I replace my container with a new version. But I want the upload data of users to remain in the storage/app/public folder.
According to Docker, the solution to this is to create a volume. Because the data will then be saved in the volume. Even if the container is refreshed.
How do I create a volume specific for the storage folder in the Laravel project?
Add this to the php service in your docker-compose.yml file.
This will map the current directory (where the docker-compose.yml is located) to /app in the container. Change the path on the left side of the : if its the wrong path
volumes:
- ./:/app
This line is already there.
Some additional context. I have an Ubuntu development server. Here I am creating a Docker image via docker build. I push this image to Docker hub.
Then I have another server. A Windows server. Here I do a pull to get the new image. I delete the old container. I'm starting a new container for the latest image.
After that I lost my storage data on the Windows Server.
@Propolis Ok strange. I dont use windows so I am not sure how that works there. I recreate my containers quite often, and have never had a loss of storage data. But you can try and be more explicit with the storage directory perhaps?
volumes:
- ./:/app
- c:\path\to\storage:/storage
According to the manual I should be able to create a named volume via yml file with:
volumes:
- appdata:/var/www/storage/app
I also have the following lines in the yml file:
#Volumes
volumes:
appdata:
driver: local
I run the container. And when I run the command "docker volume ls" this is what I see:
DRIVER VOLUME NAME
local mysql-volume
I only see the mysql-volume. But that is another container. I want to achieve the same with my Laravel container as with the MySQL container.
@Propolis But that does not look like a windows path?
Yes correct. The laravel application needs to be distributed to different OS environments. I'm now working on a windows server. But Ubuntu servers also follow.
I think I found a solution. I can also specify a volume when I run the "docker run" command. Via the parameter: -v app_storage:/var/www/storage/app
Now a named volume has been succesfully created. I thought I could achieve the same effect via yml. But via command line when starting the container is also workable for me.
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