The Inception project is a DevOps-oriented exercise designed to help you master container orchestration using Docker and Docker Compose. Through this project, you'll gain hands-on experience in setting up and managing a complete multi-service infrastructure within a virtualized environment. You’ll learn how to build your own Docker images, configure services to work seamlessly together, and ensure secure and performant inter-container communication. This project touches on a wide range of essential DevOps concepts, including networking, volumes, secure service exposure, and caching.

This infrastructure runs entirely using Docker Compose with self-written Dockerfiles (no pre-made images), and each service runs in its own dedicated container.

• NGINX

  • Serves as the web server.
  • Supports TLSv1.2 / TLSv1.3.
  • Acts as a reverse proxy for WordPress and the static site.

• WordPress

  • Runs with PHP-FPM
  • Connected to MariaDB and Redis for database and caching respectively.

• MariaDB

  • Database service for WordPress.
  • Data stored in a dedicated volume.

• Redis

  • Configured to cache WordPress data.

• FTP Server

  • Provides file transfer access to the WordPress site files for upload, download, and management.

• Static Website

  • A small non-PHP website (e.g., personal portfolio or resume).
  • Hosted by NGINX as a separate subdomain.

• Adminer

  • Database management tool for MariaDB.

• Portainer

  • Provides a GUI for Docker container and volume management.

All services are connected through a custom Docker network that enables secure and isolated communication between containers.

All Docker images are built from the project’s Dockerfiles and managed using a Makefile.

Example commands:

make build   # Builds all Docker images
make up      # Starts all services using docker-compose
make down    # Stops and removes containers and networks