Inception — Infrastructure with Docker

SysAdmin project from the 42 curriculum, built by madelvin.

A small, containerized web infrastructure: every service runs in its own isolated container, orchestrated with Docker Compose and built from scratch on Debian BookWorm.

Services

Service	Role	Entry point
NGINX	The only public entry point. Serves TLS v1.2/v1.3 on port 443 and routes traffic to the other services.	https://<domain>
WordPress	CMS running on php-fpm (port 9000).	https://<domain>
MariaDB	Database used by WordPress.	internal
Redis	Cache to speed up WordPress.	internal
Adminer	Web interface to manage the database.	https://adminer.<domain>
Static site	Simple static website served behind NGINX.	https://static.<domain>
Portainer	Web interface to manage Docker.	https://portainer.<domain>
FTP	File transfer server (ports 21, 21000-21010).	ftp://<domain>

Architecture

                            ┌───────────────────────┐
  HTTPS :443  ─────────────▶│         NGINX         │  TLS 1.2 / 1.3
                            │  seul point d'entrée  │
                            └───────────┬───────────┘
                                        │
          ┌──────────────┬──────────────┼──────────────┬──────────────┐  inception_network (bridge)
          ▼              ▼              ▼              ▼              ▼
    ┌───────────┐  ┌───────────┐  ┌───────────┐  ┌───────────┐  ┌───────────┐
    │ WordPress │  │  Adminer  │  │Static site│  │ Portainer │  │    FTP    │
    │  php-fpm  │  │  php-fpm  │  │   proxy   │  │docker.sock│  │           │
    └─────┬─────┘  └─────┬─────┘  └───────────┘  └───────────┘  └───────────┘
          │              │
          ├───────────┐  │
          ▼           ▼  ▼
    ┌───────────┐  ┌───────────┐
    │   Redis   │  │  MariaDB  │
    │   :6379   │  │   :3306   │
    └───────────┘  └───────────┘

All containers communicate over a private Docker bridge network using their service names. Only NGINX and FTP are exposed to the host.

Design choices

• PID 1 philosophy — every service runs in the foreground with proper signal handling. No hacky tricks like tail -f.
• No hardcoded secrets — all passwords and configuration come from a .env file, never from the Dockerfiles.
• Named volumes / data persistence — database and WordPress files live on the host in /home/madelvin/data, so nothing is lost on restart.
• Healthchecks & dependency ordering — services only start when their dependencies are healthy (e.g. WordPress waits for MariaDB and Redis).

Quick start

1. Prerequisites

• Docker and Docker Compose
• make

2. Configure your environment

cd srcs
cp .env-exemple .env

Edit srcs/.env and set your own DOMAIN_NAME and passwords.

Then map the domain to 127.0.0.1 in your /etc/hosts:

127.0.0.1  <domain>
127.0.0.1  adminer.<domain>
127.0.0.1  static.<domain>
127.0.0.1  portainer.<domain>

3. Build & launch

make all

Everything is managed from the Makefile at the repository root:

Command	Action
make all	Build and start all services
make up	Start the services
make stop	Stop the containers
make down	Stop and remove containers + network (data kept)
make clean	down + delete the data in /home/madelvin/data
make fclean	Full cleanup: containers, volumes, images and data
make re	fclean then rebuild everything
make logs	Follow the logs of all services
make ps	Show container status

The site is then available at https://<domain>.

Where is the data?

Persistent data is stored on the host and survives any container restart:

• /home/*USER*/data/mariadb — database files
• /home/*USER*/data/wordpress — WordPress files (themes, plugins, uploads)

Use make clean or make fclean to delete it.

Resources

• Docker Documentation
• NGINX SSL/TLS guide
• MariaDB Quickstart

Developer & user guides

• DEV_DOC.md — how the project is built and managed
• USER_DOC.md — how to use the services