Preventing development containers from running in production - docker

Question

I have a docker-compose.yml file that includes a container for API mocks as well as phpmyadmin and mongo-express containers none of which should be started in my production environment.
I already have seperate .env files for production and development. Is it possible to use variables from the active .env file to disable a container?
Here is my docker-compose.yml:
services:
mysql:
build: ./docker/mysql
command: --default-authentication-plugin=mysql_native_password
container_name: mysql
entrypoint: sh -c "/usr/local/bin/docker-entrypoint.sh --character-set-server=utf8mb4 --collation-server=utf8mb4_unicode_ci"
environment:
- MYSQL_DATABASE=${MYSQL_DATABASE}
- MYSQL_USER=${MYSQL_USERNAME}
- MYSQL_PASSWORD=${MYSQL_PASSWORD}
- MYSQL_RANDOM_ROOT_PASSWORD=yes
- MYSQL_ONETIME_PASSWORD=yes
ports:
- 3306:3306
restart: unless-stopped
volumes:
- ./data/mysql:/var/lib/mysql
phpmyadmin:
container_name: phpmyadmin
environment:
- PMA_HOST=mysql
image: phpmyadmin/phpmyadmin
ports:
- 8080:80
mongo:
build: ./docker/mongo
container_name: mongo
environment:
- MONGO_INITDB_DATABASE=${MONGO_DATABASE}
- MONGO_INITDB_ROOT_USERNAME=${MONGO_USERNAME}
- MONGO_INITDB_ROOT_PASSWORD=${MONGO_PASSWORD}
ports:
- 27017:27017
restart: unless-stopped
volumes:
- ./data/mongo:/data/db
mongo-express:
build: ./docker/mongo-express
container_name: mongo-express
depends_on:
- mongo
environment:
- ME_CONFIG_BASICAUTH_PASSWORD=redacted
- ME_CONFIG_BASICAUTH_USERNAME=username
- ME_CONFIG_MONGODB_ADMINUSERNAME=${MONGO_USERNAME}
- ME_CONFIG_MONGODB_ADMINPASSWORD=${MONGO_PASSWORD}
ports:
- 8081:8081
redis:
build: ./docker/redis
container_name: redis
ports:
- 6379:6379
restart: unless-stopped
volumes:
- ./data/redis:/data
mock-apis:
build: ./docker/mock-apis
container_name: mock-apis
command: >
/initscript.bash
ports:
- 81:80
volumes:
- ./mock-apis:/home/nodejs
php-fpm:
build:
context: ./docker/php-fpm
args:
HOST_UID: ${HOST_UID}
command: >
/initscript.bash
container_name: php-fpm
restart: unless-stopped
depends_on:
- mongo
- mysql
- redis
volumes:
- ./laravel:/var/www/
nginx:
build: ./docker/nginx
container_name: nginx
depends_on:
- php-fpm
ports:
- 80:80
restart: unless-stopped
volumes:
- ./laravel:/var/www/
version: "3"

Answer 1

I'm using profiles to scope my services. If I want to use PhpMyAdmin only in dev I add this profile to the service:
phpmyadmin:
container_name: phpmyadmin
environment:
- PMA_HOST=mysql
image: phpmyadmin/phpmyadmin
ports:
- 8080:80
profiles: ["dev"]
So now I have to tell to docker compose if I want to use the dev profile. Else it will not start.
You can use one of these command (with this way you have to type --profile your_profil for each profile):
$ docker-compose --profile dev up -d
$ docker-compose --profile dev --profile profil2 up -d <- for multiple profiles
Or the cleaner way you can separate your services with a comma:
$ COMPOSE_PROFILES=dev,profil2 docker-compose up -d
Services without a profiles attribute will always be enabled.
Care about when you stop your services you have to specify the profile too:
$ COMPOSE_PROFILES=dev docker-compose down