This project has been created as part of the 42 curriculum by ael-azha.

Inception

Description

Inception is a system administration project from the 42 curriculum. The project can run either inside a Virtual Machine (recommended for 42 evaluation) or directly on a Linux host machine.

Required tools:

• Docker
• Docker Compose
• GNU Make
• Git
• Linux OS (Debian/Ubuntu recommended)

The infrastructure consists of three containers:

• NGINX — the only entry point, serving HTTPS on port 443 with TLSv1.2/TLSv1.3
• WordPress + PHP-FPM — the web application, communicating with NGINX via FastCGI
• MariaDB — the database storing all WordPress data

All services are isolated in their own containers, connected through a Docker network, and their data persists through named Docker volumes.

Project Description

Use of Docker:

Each service runs in a dedicated container built from a custom Dockerfile based on Debian Bookworm. No pre-built images are used (except the base OS). Docker Compose orchestrates all containers, volumes, and the network.

Virtual Machine vs Docker:

	Virtual Machine	Docker
Isolation	Full hardware level	Process level (namespaces)
Includes kernel	Yes	No — shares host kernel
Size	GBs	MBs
Startup	Minutes	Seconds
Use case	Full OS isolation	Lightweight app isolation

Secrets vs Environment Variables:

	Environment Variables	Docker Secrets
Storage	.env file	secrets/ files
Visibility	Available to all container processes	Mounted as files, more secure
Use case	Configuration values	Sensitive credentials
Git safety	Must be in .gitignore	Must be in .gitignore

In this project, credentials are stored in a .env file (excluded from git) and passed to containers via env_file in Docker Compose.

Docker Network vs Host Network:

	Docker Network	Host Network
Isolation	Containers have their own network namespace	Container shares host network directly
Security	Containers only communicate through defined network	No isolation
Subject compliance	Required ✅	Forbidden ❌

A custom bridge network called inception is used. Containers communicate using their service names (e.g. mariadb, wp-php) as hostnames.

Docker Volumes vs Bind Mounts:

	Named Volumes	Bind Mounts
Data location	Managed by Docker at defined path	Any host path
Subject compliance	Required ✅	Forbidden ❌
Persistence	Survives container removal	Survives container removal
Data path	/home/ael-azha/data/	Any path

Two named volumes are used: one for WordPress files and one for the MariaDB database, both stored at /home/ael-azha/data/ on the host machine.

Instructions

Prerequisites

- Docker and Docker Compose installed
- A Virtual Machine running Linux (Debian/Ubuntu recommended)

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

git clone git@github.com:AelElz/Inception-DevOps-.git
cd Inception

2. Create the .env file at srcs/.env:

DOMAIN_NAME=ael-azha.42.fr
MYSQL_DATABASE=wordpress
MYSQL_USER=user
MYSQL_PASSWORD=yourpassword
MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=yourrootpassword
WP_ADMIN_USER=ael-azha
WP_ADMIN_PASSWORD=yourpassword
WP_ADMIN_EMAIL=ael-azha@student.42.fr
WP_USER=student
WP_USER_PASSWORD=yourpassword
WP_USER_EMAIL=student@student.42.fr

3. Add the domain to /etc/hosts:

echo "127.0.0.1 ael-azha.42.fr" | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts

4. Build and start the project:

make

5. Open your browser at: https://ael-azha.42.fr

6. Accept the self-signed certificate warning and your WordPress site will be running

Available Makefile Commands

Command	Action
make	Build images and start all containers
make down	Stop all containers
make clean	Stop containers and prune unused Docker resources
make fclean	Full reset — removes all data, images, and volumes
make re	Full clean then rebuild from scratch
make logs	Show logs of all containers
make status	Show running containers

Resources

Documentation

• Docker official documentation
• Docker Compose documentation
• NGINX documentation
• MariaDB documentation
• WordPress CLI (WP-CLI)
• PHP-FPM documentation
• Linux namespaces — man page

AI Usage

Claude (claude.ai) was used throughout this project for:

• Understanding Docker concepts (namespaces, cgroups, volumes, networks)
• Debugging container errors by analyzing logs
• Understanding configuration files (nginx, php-fpm, mariadb)
• Explaining the difference between concepts required by the subject (VMs vs Docker, secrets vs env vars, etc.)

All AI-generated content was reviewed, tested, and understood before being used in the project.