Work inside the PHP container

Use the PHP container as your project shell. It has the same mounted project files, the same service hostnames, and the toolchain expected by Devilbox workflows.

Enter PHP

From the Devilbox repository root:

./dvl.sh up php
./dvl.sh shell

./dvl.sh shell [php-version] opens an interactive shell as the devilbox user. It auto-detects .devilbox.yaml from the current project path when possible.

Examples:

./dvl.sh shell
./dvl.sh shell php82
./dvl.sh shell php84

Run one command without entering

Use exec for short tasks:

./dvl.sh exec "php -v"
./dvl.sh exec "composer --version"

Dedicated wrappers are better for common project commands:

./dvl.sh composer install
./dvl.sh magento cache:clean
./dvl.sh magerun cache:status

Work in a project

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

cd data/www/my-project
../../../dvl.sh shell

Inside the container:

cd /shared/httpd/my-project
composer install
npm install
npm run build

If you use the global installer symlink, the host command is shorter:

cd data/www/my-project
dvl shell

Magento workflow

For Magento projects, prefer the DVL wrappers from the host:

./dvl.sh composer install
./dvl.sh magento setup:upgrade
./dvl.sh magento cache:clean
./dvl.sh magento indexer:reindex

Inside the PHP shell, direct commands also work:

php bin/magento cache:clean
php bin/magento setup:di:compile
composer require vendor/package

Node workflow

Use the PHP container when your selected PHP image contains the required Node tooling:

npm install
npm run dev
npm run build

For long-running Vite, Next.js, or frontend dev servers, bind them to all interfaces so the host can reach them:

npm run dev -- --host 0.0.0.0

Then open the exposed host port configured for that project or stack.

User and permissions

The shell runs as devilbox, mapped to NEW_UID and NEW_GID from .env. Files created in the container should be editable on the host.

Check the mapping:

id
touch /shared/httpd/permission-check.txt
exit
ls -l data/www/permission-check.txt
rm data/www/permission-check.txt

If ownership is wrong, update .env:

NEW_UID=501
NEW_GID=20

Then recreate containers:

./dvl.sh down
./dvl.sh up

Service hostnames

Use service names from inside PHP:

Service	Hostname	Typical port
HTTPD	`httpd`	`80` / `443`
MySQL/MariaDB	`mysql`	`3306`
Redis	`redis`	`6379`
OpenSearch	`opensearch`	`9200`
DNS	`bind`	`53`

Example database check:

mysql -h mysql -u root -p

Become root only when needed

The devilbox user can use passwordless sudo in the PHP image:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y nmap

Leave the container

Exit the shell:

exit

Stop the stack when finished:

./dvl.sh down