How to setup existing WordPress website on localhost using Docker

Enable local development, testing, versioning and minimize costs

If for some reason you are planning to cancel your current hosting renewal. Then decided to backup your files and database temporarily.

Don’t worry in this blog I will share how you can access those backup on your local

• You can refer to your previous content while migrating to newer hosting provider

• Minimize costs and deploy only once you’re ready

• Do development and testing locally for faster iteration

• Version your changes locally

1. Download the existing files and database from your hosting provider

Example

• public_html.zip

• database.sql

2. Spin up the container

Create a docker-compose.yml file

services:

  wordpress:
    image: wordpress
    restart: always
    ports:
      - 8080:80
    environment:
      WORDPRESS_DB_HOST: db
      WORDPRESS_DB_USER: XXX
      WORDPRESS_DB_PASSWORD: XXX
      WORDPRESS_DB_NAME: XXX
    volumes:
      - wordpress:/var/www/html

  db:
    image: mysql:8.0
    restart: always
    environment:
      MYSQL_DATABASE: XXX
      MYSQL_USER: XXX
      MYSQL_PASSWORD: XXX
      MYSQL_RANDOM_ROOT_PASSWORD: '1'
    volumes:
      - db:/var/lib/mysql
    ports:
      - 3306:3306

volumes:
  wordpress:
  db:

When entering ENV variables values it is important to use the existing username, password and database name from your hosting provider. You want to simulate the existing wordpress on your local machine

We expose the port 3306 of the database so that we can access the database using Database GUI like MySQL Workbench or so on.

After checking the values run the command

docker-compose up -d

3. Copy WordPress Files to Docker Container

Assuming your files are in ~/hostinger_backup/public_html:

docker cp ~/hostinger_backup/public_html/. wordpress:/var/www/html

Note: wordpress is the name of the wordpress container. Run docker ps to check the container name

Tip: Use the dot . to copy contents, not the folder itself.

Then fix permissions inside the container:

docker exec -it wordpress bash
chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html
chmod -R 755 /var/www/html
exit

4. Import Database into Docker MySQL

a. Copy the sql file into the container

docker cp ~/hostinger_backup/backup.sql wp-db:/backup.sql

Note: wp-db is the name of database container. Run docker ps to check the container name

b. Import it

docker exec -it wp-db bash
mysql -u XXX -p

 wordpress < /backup.sql

Enter the MySQL password

c. Update site URLs if domain changed:

USE wordpress;
UPDATE wp_options SET option_value='http://localhost:8080' WHERE option_name='siteurl';
UPDATE wp_options SET option_value='http://localhost:8080' WHERE option_name='home';

Adjust http://localhost:8080 to your new domain if needed.

5. Update wp-config.php

Inside /var/www/html/wp-config.php, make sure the database credentials match your Docker setup:

define('DB_NAME', 'XXX');
define('DB_USER', 'XXX');
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'XXX');
define('DB_HOST', 'db');

Common Mistakes when setting DB_HOST

• localhost or 127.0.0.1 is being used instead of db

localhost refer to the wordpress container itself, by using db (service name) docker can resolve it to proper ip address

6. Update wp-config.php

Finally access the site using localhost:8080

Note: If you want to develop and test locally you can change

 volumes:
      - wordpress:/var/www/html

to

 volumes:
      - /path/to/your-folder/:/var/www/html