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Devilbox

Setup CodeIgniter4

Setup CodeIgniter4

This example installs a current CodeIgniter 4 application with Composer from inside the Devilbox PHP container and serves it through the standard htdocs virtual host layout.

Overview

Project nameContainer pathDatabaseTLD_SUFFIXProject URL
my-ci/shared/httpd/my-cimy_cilvh.mehttp://my-ci.lvh.me / https://my-ci.lvh.me

Inside the container, projects live in /shared/httpd/. On the host, the files are in ./data/www/ below the Devilbox checkout.

Prerequisites

  • Devilbox with PHP 8.3 or PHP 8.4 available from env-example.
  • MySQL and HTTPD containers enabled.
  • Docker Compose v2 and ./dvl.sh.

Start the stack:

Terminal window
./dvl.sh up php httpd mysql bind

Walk through

It will be ready in eight steps:

  1. Enter the PHP container.
  2. Create a new virtual host directory.
  3. Install CodeIgniter 4.
  4. Link public/ to htdocs.
  5. Add a MySQL database.
  6. Configure the database connection.
  7. Verify DNS.
  8. Open the project in a browser.

1. Enter the PHP container

Terminal window
./dvl.sh shell php83

2. Create the vhost directory

Terminal window
mkdir -p /shared/httpd/my-ci
cd /shared/httpd/my-ci

3. Install CodeIgniter 4

Terminal window
composer create-project codeigniter4/appstarter ci4app

Expected structure:

Terminal window
tree -L 1
.
└── ci4app
Terminal window
ln -s ci4app/public htdocs

Expected structure:

Terminal window
tree -L 1
.
├── ci4app
└── htdocs -> ci4app/public

5. Add the MySQL database

Terminal window
mysql -u root -h 127.0.0.1 -p -e 'CREATE DATABASE my_ci CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;'

6. Configure the database connection

Copy the environment template and edit it:

Terminal window
cd ci4app
cp env .env
vi .env

Set the database values:

database.default.hostname = 127.0.0.1
database.default.database = my_ci
database.default.username = root
database.default.password =
database.default.DBDriver = MySQLi
database.default.port = 3306

7. Verify DNS

With TLD_SUFFIX=lvh.me, my-ci.lvh.me resolves automatically. For another suffix, add a hosts entry for your chosen name.

8. Open your browser

Visit http://my-ci.lvh.me or https://my-ci.lvh.me.

Next steps

  • Use ./dvl.sh exec "php spark" from the project directory for non-interactive Spark commands.
  • Use the Devilbox intranet database tools to inspect my_ci.
  • Add HTTPS trust and Xdebug once the application responds.