Setup CraftCMS

Setup CraftCMS

This example installs a current Craft CMS project with Composer inside the Devilbox PHP container and serves it through the htdocs virtual host document root.

Overview

Project name	Container path	Database	TLD_SUFFIX	Project URL
my-craft	/shared/httpd/my-craft	my_craft	lvh.me	http://my-craft.lvh.me / https://my-craft.lvh.me

Projects live in /shared/httpd/ in the PHP container and in ./data/www/ on the host.

Prerequisites

• Devilbox installed with the PHP 8.3 or PHP 8.4 container enabled.
• MySQL, HTTPD, and Bind available.
• Composer available in the PHP container.

Start the required services:

./dvl.sh up php httpd mysql bind

Tip

For a single command from the host, run ./dvl.sh exec "php -v". For interactive setup wizards, use ./dvl.sh shell.

Walk through

It will be ready in eight steps:

1. Enter the PHP container.
2. Create a new virtual host directory.
3. Install Craft CMS.
4. Link web/ to htdocs.
5. Add the MySQL database.
6. Verify DNS.
7. Run the setup wizard.
8. Open the site.

1. Enter the PHP container

./dvl.sh shell php83

2. Create the vhost directory

mkdir -p /shared/httpd/my-craft
cd /shared/httpd/my-craft

3. Install Craft CMS

composer create-project craftcms/craft craftcms

Expected structure:

tree -L 1
.
└── craftcms

4. Link the webroot

ln -s craftcms/web htdocs

Expected structure:

tree -L 1
.
├── craftcms
└── htdocs -> craftcms/web

5. Add the MySQL database

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

6. Verify DNS

With the default lvh.me suffix, my-craft.lvh.me resolves automatically. Add a hosts entry only if you use a custom suffix.

7. Run the setup wizard

Use the Craft CLI wizard:

php craftcms/craft setup

Suggested answers:

• Database driver: mysql
• Database server: 127.0.0.1
• Database port: 3306
• Database username: root
• Database password: your MySQL password from .env
• Database name: my_craft
• Site URL: http://my-craft.lvh.me

You can also open http://my-craft.lvh.me/admin/install or https://my-craft.lvh.me/admin/install and complete the browser wizard with the same values.

8. Open your browser

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

Next steps

• Use the Devilbox intranet database tools to inspect my_craft.
• Configure local HTTPS trust for the admin panel.
• Add Redis or queue services only when the Craft project requires them.