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Devilbox

Setup Joomla

Setup Joomla

This example installs Joomla 5 inside Devilbox and serves it through the standard htdocs document root.

Overview

Project nameContainer pathDatabaseTLD_SUFFIXProject URL
my-joomla/shared/httpd/my-joomlamy_joomlalvh.mehttp://my-joomla.lvh.me / https://my-joomla.lvh.me

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

Prerequisites

  • Devilbox with PHP 8.3 or PHP 8.4 available.
  • HTTPD, MySQL, and Bind services.
  • Docker Compose v2 through Docker.

Start the stack:

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

Walk through

It will be ready in seven steps:

  1. Enter the PHP container.
  2. Create a new virtual host directory.
  3. Download and extract Joomla 5.
  4. Link the document root.
  5. Add a MySQL database.
  6. Verify DNS.
  7. Open the Joomla installer.

1. Enter the PHP container

Terminal window
./dvl.sh shell php83

2. Create the vhost directory

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

3. Download and extract Joomla 5

Download the current Joomla 5 full package from the official Joomla downloads page, then extract it into joomla:

Terminal window
mkdir joomla
unzip Joomla_5-Stable-Full_Package.zip -d joomla

Expected structure:

Terminal window
tree -L 1
.
├── Joomla_5-Stable-Full_Package.zip
└── joomla
Terminal window
ln -s joomla htdocs

Expected structure:

Terminal window
tree -L 1
.
├── Joomla_5-Stable-Full_Package.zip
├── joomla
└── htdocs -> joomla

5. Add the MySQL database

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

6. Verify DNS

my-joomla.lvh.me resolves automatically to localhost. Add a hosts entry only when using a custom suffix.

7. Open the Joomla installer

Visit http://my-joomla.lvh.me or https://my-joomla.lvh.me and follow the installer.

Use these database values:

  • Database type: MySQLi
  • Host: 127.0.0.1
  • User: root
  • Database name: my_joomla
  • Password: your .env value

Next steps

  • Remove the installation directory if Joomla prompts for manual cleanup.
  • Configure valid local HTTPS.
  • Use Adminer or phpMyAdmin from the Devilbox intranet for database checks.