13. Running WordPress & Database Containers on Portenta X8

Overview

The Arduino Portenta X8 is a powerful board that has many features that can be easily utilized with the help of Docker containers. In this tutorial, we will be using the Portenta X8 to host a web server and run WordPress using containers. This is a simple way to configure and run your own database server container and WordPress page. We can then access the WordPress site on the X8 through our web browser and begin setting it up.

Goals

• Create the file to install docker containers
• Install and run the containers
• Connect to the WordPress container running on the Portenta X8

Required Hardware and Software

• Arduino Portenta X8
• USB-C® cable (either USB-C® to USB-A or USB-C® to USB-C®)
• The docker-compose.yml file used in this tutorial

Instructions

First, make sure your Portenta X8 is set up correctly by following the User Manual's Out-of-the-Box Experience.

Creating the docker-compose.yml File

The WordPress container we use is a multi-container application, which also requires a database server container. The WordPress multi-container application uses Apache as its web server. It is required to make the service operational and comes included within the container. We will be using MariaDB as our database server as a container instance.

This container can run on the Portenta X8's architecture. To start using these containers is to build a docker-compose.yml file. This file contains information regarding what image we want to install and important configuration details, such as the username for the database, password, timezone, and database name. The same goes for the WordPress container: it will include the password and username. We will also enter the database hostname and which container will be used as the database. We recommend changing the default passwords to more secure ones by replacing the default password defined in the file below.

The Complete docker-compose.yml File

In this section, you can find the complete docker-compose.yml file that we will be using for this tutorial.

Copy
1version: "3.9"
2    
3services:
4  db:
5    image: mariadb:latest
6    container_name: mariadb
7    environment:
8      - PUID=1000
9      - PGID=1000
10      - MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=Wordpress
11      - TZ=Europe/London
12      - MYSQL_DATABASE=Wordpress
13      - MYSQL_USER=Wordpress
14      - MYSQL_PASSWORD=Wordpress
15    volumes:
16      - db_data:/var/lib/mysql
17    restart: unless-stopped
18    
19  Wordpress:
20    depends_on:
21      - db
22    image: wordpress:latest
23    volumes:
24      - Wordpress_data:/var/www/html
25    ports:
26      - "8000:80"
27    restart: always
28    environment:
29      WORDPRESS_DB_HOST: db
30      WORDPRESS_DB_USER: Wordpress
31      WORDPRESS_DB_PASSWORD: Wordpress
32      WORDPRESS_DB_NAME: Wordpress
33volumes:
34  Wordpress_data: {}
35  db_data: {}

Now let's create a directory on our X8 and put this docker-compose.yml file on our device. You can download the file by clicking here.

Installing The Containers

First, we create a directory where we want to add our docker-compose.yml file. Using the

mkdir

cd

To create the file, we can use

cat > docker-compose.yml

ctrl C

Copy
1adb push <path to docker-compose.yml file> /home/fio/wordpress-test

Alternatively, you could place the

docker-compose.yml

wordpress-test

Copy
1adb push .\wordpress-test\ /home/fio

Both options work fine and depend on how you would like to handle the file.

Remember that you may need to run the next command to gain admin access for running the Docker's commands:

sudo su -

fio

Before installing the containers, make sure that no other container is running on the ports that the WordPress container will use. You can check what containers are running and what port they are using by running the

docker ps -a

To remove a container first stop it with

docker stop <container id>

docker rm <container id>

When you are in the correct directory and no other container is running on the ports that WordPress will use, you can now run

docker compose up -d

-d

-d

When the command is executed it will start installing the WordPress and MariaDB containers. This can take a while. To get the output from the containers use:

docker-compose logs -f

Connecting to the WordPress Site

To connect to the WordPress setup site, you simply need to access it with your Portenta X8's unique id and port. So we can use the following address format:

Copy
1http://portenta-x8-<uuid>.local:<port>

Where you would substitute the

<uuid>

<port>

<uuid>

adb

http://192.168.7.1:8000

http://192.168.8.1:8000

When you connect, you should get some feedback in the terminal. Text will begin printing in the terminal, showing you information about the connection that has just been established as shown in the image below.

Now you should see a webpage, like the following image, in your browser.

You are now free to go through the WordPress setup process and configure it however you like.

Removing the containers

If you want to remove the container, you have to go to

/home/fio/wordpress-test

Remove the container but preserves your WordPress database:

Copy
1docker compose down

Remove the container and the database:

Copy
1docker compose down --volumes

To make sure that it was successful, run

docker ps -a

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we went through how to install and run a WordPress and database container on the Portenta X8. We then accessed the WordPress site on our X8 through our web browser. So now you can set up your own WordPress site on your X8 device and access it from another device.

Troubleshooting

• If the containers are not being installed or running correctly, check if there are any other containers currently running on the same ports as the ones used by the WordPress container. You can check it with

  docker ps -a

  .

• If there is any issue running docker commands, make sure you are using

  sudo

  before the commands or having root access using:

  sudo su -r

  with password:

  fio

  .

• If you cannot connect to the site when everything is running, you can double-check the X8's IP address. Run the command

  ip -h address

  in the adb shell. This will display the X8's IP address via USB and Wi-Fi®. Try connecting via those IP addresses if all the rest fails.