Docker is extremely slow when running Laravel on Nginx container wsl2 - docker

Question

I've updated Windows 10 to 2004 latest version, installed wsl2 and updated it, installed docker, and ubuntu.
When I create a simple index.php file with "Hello World" it's working perfectly ( response: 100-400ms ) but when I added my Laravel project it becomes miserable as it loads for 7sec before performing the request and the response is 4 - 7 seconds😢, even though PHPMyAdmin is running very smoothly ( response: 1 - 2 seconds ).
my docker-compose.yml file:
version: '3.8'
networks:
laravel:
services:
nginx:
image: nginx:stable-alpine
container_name: nginx
ports:
- "8080:80"
volumes:
- ./src:/var/www/html
- ./nginx/default.conf:/etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf
depends_on:
- php
- mysql
- phpmyadmin
networks:
- laravel
mysql:
image: mysql:latest
container_name: mysql
restart: unless-stopped
tty: true
ports:
- "3306:3306"
environment:
MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: secret
SERVICE_TAGS: dev
SERVICE_NAME: mysql
networks:
- laravel
phpmyadmin:
image: phpmyadmin/phpmyadmin
restart: always
depends_on:
- mysql
ports:
- 8081:80
environment:
PMA_HOST: mysql
PMA_ARBITRARY: 1
php:
build:
context: .
dockerfile: Dockerfile
container_name: php
volumes:
- ./src:/var/www/html
ports:
- "9000:9000"
networks:
- laravel
composer:
image: composer:latest
container_name: composer
volumes:
- ./src:/var/www/html
working_dir: /var/www/html
depends_on:
- php
networks:
- laravel
npm:
image: node:latest
container_name: npm
volumes:
- ./src:/var/www/html
working_dir: /var/www/html
entrypoint: ['npm']
artisan:
build:
context: .
dockerfile: Dockerfile
container_name: artisan
volumes:
- ./src:/var/www/html
depends_on:
- mysql
working_dir: /var/www/html
entrypoint: ['php', '/var/www/html/artisan']
networks:
- laravel
I've been trying to fix this issue for 2 days but couldn't find the answer.
Thanks

Answer 1

It looks like you are mounting your Laravel project in your container. This could result in very poor file I/O if you are mounting these files from your Windows environment to WSL 2, since WSL 2 currently has a lot of problems accessing files that are on the Windows environment. This I/O issue exists as of July 2020, you can find the ongoing status of the issue on Github here.
There are three possible solutions I can think of that will resolve this issue for now.
Disable WSL 2 based engine for docker until the issue is resolved
Since this issue only occurs when WSL 2 tries to access the Windows filesystem, you could choose to disable WSL 2 docker integration and run your containers on your Windows environment instead. You can find the option to disable it in the UI of Docker Desktop here:
Store your project in the Linux filesystem of WSL 2
Again, since this issue occurs when WSL 2 tries to access the mount points of the Windows filesystem under /mnt, you could choose to store your project onto the Linux filesystem of WSL 2 instead.
Build your own Dockerfiles
You could choose to create your own Dockerfiles and instead of mounting your project, you can COPY the desired directories into the docker images instead. This would result in poor build performance, since WSL 2 will still have to access your Windows filesystem in order to build these docker images, but the runtime performance will be much better, since it won't have to retrieve these files from the Windows environment everytime.

Answer 2

You just move all source project to folder
\\wsl$\Ubuntu-20.04\home\<User Name>\<Project Name>
The speed will be to very fast such run on Linux Native
Before
After

Answer 3

I experienced the same problem with mysql database requests and responses taking about 8 to 10 seconds for each request/response. The problem definitely relates to the mounting of files between the Windows file system and Windows WSL2. After many days of trying to resolve this issue, I found this post:
https://www.createit.com/blog/slow-docker-on-windows-wsl2-fast-and-easy-fix-to-improve-performance/
After implementing the steps specified in the post, it totally eliminated the problem, reducing database requests/responses to milliseconds. Hopefully this will assist someone experiencing the same issue.

Answer 4

Ok, so i got an interesting fact :))
Running docker on windows without WSL2.
A request has TTFB 5.41s. This is the index.php file. I used die() to check where the time is bigger and i found that if i use die() after terminate, the TTFB becomes ~2.5s.
<?php
/**
* Laravel - A PHP Framework For Web Artisans
*
* #package Laravel
* #author Taylor Otwell <taylor#laravel.com>
*/
define('LARAVEL_START', microtime(true));
require __DIR__.'/../../application/vendor/autoload.php';
$app = require_once __DIR__.'/../../application/bootstrap/app.php';
#die(); <-- TTFB 1.72s
$kernel = $app->make(Illuminate\Contracts\Http\Kernel::class);
$response = $kernel->handle(
$request = Illuminate\Http\Request::capture()
);
$response->send();
#die(); <-- TTFB 2.67s
$kernel->terminate($request, $response);
#die(); <-- TTFB 2.74s
#if there is no die in the file then TTFB is ~6s

Answer 5

You are running your project on the /mnt/xxx folder, isn't it?
This is because wsl2 filesystem performance is much slower than wsl1 in /mnt.
If your want a very short solution, it is here. Works on Ubuntu 18.04 and Debian from windows store:
Go to the docker settings and turn on Expose daemon on tcp://localhost:2375 without TLS and turn off Use the WSL 2 based engine.
Run this command:
clear && sudo apt-get update && \
sudo curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com -o get-docker.sh && sudo sh get-docker.sh && sudo usermod -aG docker $USER && \
sudo curl -L "https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/download/1.26.2/docker-compose-$(uname -s)-$(uname -m)" -o /usr/local/bin/docker-compose && sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/docker-compose && \
echo "export PATH=\"$PATH:$HOME/.local/bin\"" >> ~/.profile && source ~/.profile && \
echo "export DOCKER_HOST=tcp://localhost:2375" >> ~/.bashrc && source ~/.bashrc && \
printf '[automount]\nroot = /\noptions = metadata' | sudo tee -a /etc/wsl.conf
I wrote the instuction how to integrate the Docker Desktop with WSL 1:
https://github.com/CaliforniaMountainSnake/wsl-1-docker-integration

Answer 6

I was facing the same issue with Laravel/Docker/Nginx on Windows 11.
I couldn't disable "Use the WSL 2 based engine", because it was grey out, even after installing Hyper-v on Windows 11 Home (tweak).
Here is the best solution I found:
1 . Copy your project into your WSL folder
Open Windows explorer and type the following address :
\wsl.localhost\
Select your WSL instance, and then you can copy your project into /home/yourUsername/
The full URL will be something like :
\wsl.localhost\ubuntu\home\username\yourProject
2.Start docker containers
Just open a terminal from this folder, and start your containers
eg: docker-compose up -d
3.Visual Studio Code
to open the project folder from visual studio :
CTRL + P, >Remote-WSL : Open folder in WSL...
to open the project folder from the command line :
code --remote wsl+Ubuntu /home/username/yourProject

Answer 7

You can exclude vendor folder from compose file
like
volumes:
- ./www:/var/www
- vendor:/var/www/vendor

Answer 8

This is really sketchy way of improving the speed but here is goes:
Problem
The speed of loading composer dependencies from a vendor dir, which is mapped from project root on Windows to a docker container via WSL 2, is currently reaaaaaly slow.
Solution
Copy vendor dir to docker image and use it as opposed to the mapped one in project root.
The project structure using MySQL database and Apache PHP 7.4 with composer auto-loading looks like this:
db
- init.sql
dev
- db
- Dockerfile
- data.sql
- www
- Dockerfile
- vendor-override.php
- docker-compose.yaml
src
- ...
vendor
- ...
composer.json
index.php
...
The idea here is to keep dev stuff separated from the main root dir.
dev/docker-compose.yaml
version: '3.8'
services:
test-db:
build:
context: ../
dockerfile: dev/db/Dockerfile
test-www:
build:
context: ../
dockerfile: dev/www/Dockerfile
ports:
- {insert_random_port_here}:80
volumes:
- ../:/var/www/html
Here we have two services, one for MySQL database and one for Apache with PHP, which maps web root /var/www/html to our project root. This enables Apache to see the project source files (src and index.php).
dev/db/Dockerfile
FROM mysql:5.7.24
# Add initialize script (adding 0 in front of it, makes sure it is executed first as the scripts are loaded alphabetically)
ADD db/init.sql /docker-entrypoint-initdb.d/0init.sql
# Add test data (adding 99 infront of it, makes sure it is executed last)
ADD dev/db/data.sql /docker-entrypoint-initdb.d/99data.sql
dev/www/Dockerfile
FROM php:7.4.0-apache-buster
# Install PHP extensions and dependencies required by them
RUN apt-get update -y & \
apt-get install -y libzip-dev libpng-dev libssl-dev libxml2-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev & \
docker-php-ext-install gd json pdo pdo_mysql mysqli ftp simplexml curl
# Enable apache mods and .htaccess files
RUN a2enmod rewrite & \
sed -e '/<Directory \/var\/www\/>/,/<\/Directory>/s/AllowOverride None/AllowOverride All/' -i /etc/apache2/apache2.conf
# Add composer to improve loading speed since its located inside linux
ADD vendor /var/www/vendor
ADD dev/www/vendor-override.php /var/www/
RUN chmod -R 777 /var/www & \
mkdir /var/www/html/src & \
ln -s /var/www/html/src /var/www/src
# Expose html dir for easier deployments
VOLUME /var/www/html
I'm using official Apache buster image with PHP 7.4.
Here we copy vendor dir and vendor-override.php to a dir above the webroot (/var/www) so it doesn't interfere with project root.
ADD vendor /var/www/vendor
ADD dev/www/vendor-override.php /var/www/
Next we set the read write execute permissions for everybody so Apache can read it. This necessary because its outside the webroot.
chmod -R 777 /var/www
Now the trick here is to make sure the composer auto-loads classes from src dir. This is solved by creating a link from /var/www/src/ to /var/www/html/src which is in our project root.
mkdir /var/www/html/src
ln -s /var/www/html/src /var/www/src
dev/www/vendor-override.php
# Override default composer dependencies to be loaded from inside docker. This is used because
# loading files over mapped volumes is really slow on WSL 2.
require_once "/var/www/vendor/autoload.php";
Simply use the vendor dir inside docker image.
index.php
$fixFile = "../vendor-override.php";
if (file_exists($fixFile))
require_once $fixFile;
else
require_once "vendor/autoload.php";
...
If vendor-override.php file is detected it is used instead of the one from the project root. This makes sure the index.php loads dir inside of the docker image which is way faster.
composer.json
{
"autoload": {
"psr-4": {
"Namespace\\": ["src"]
}
},
...
}
Simple autoloading setup maps "Namespace" to src dir in project root.
Key things to note
index.php loads vendor-override.php instead of vendor from proect root
PSR-4 autoloading is solved by linking
Downside
The downside is you have to build docker image every time you update dependencies.

Answer 9

I just enabled Hyper-V from powershell
DISM /Online /Enable-Feature /All /FeatureName:Microsoft-Hyper-V
Restarted and now it works reasonably good. I have not changed anything else whatsoever.
See more info about how to enable Hyper-V Here

Answer 10

By default, opcache is not enabled in docker container php:8.0-apache.
Add in dockerfile:
RUN docker-php-ext-install opcache
COPY ./opcache.ini /usr/local/etc/php/conf.d/opcache.ini
Create file opcache.ini:
[opcache]
opcache.enable=1
; 0 means it will check on every request
; 0 is irrelevant if opcache.validate_timestamps=0 which is desirable in production
opcache.revalidate_freq=0
opcache.validate_timestamps=1
opcache.max_accelerated_files=10000
opcache.memory_consumption=192
opcache.max_wasted_percentage=10
opcache.interned_strings_buffer=16
opcache.fast_shutdown=1