Deploying Yii applications with Angie Docker Proxy

Angie Docker Proxy is a small reverse proxy for Docker Compose projects. It runs in a separate container alongside the applications, reads the Docker API through the Docker socket, discovers containers using the VIRTUAL_HOST and VIRTUAL_PORT environment variables, generates the Angie configuration, and automatically obtains TLS certificates using ACME.

This approach is useful when you need to run several web applications on one server and enable HTTPS for them without manually editing the reverse proxy configuration for each domain.

In this example, we'll connect a containerized Yii application to Angie Docker Proxy and configure automatic HTTPS.

This guide assumes that your Yii application is already packaged as a Docker image and accepts HTTP requests on port 80. Building and configuring the application image is outside the scope of this guide.

graph LR
    A[Internet] --> B[Reverse Proxy: Angie]
    B --> C[Yii application]
    B --> D[Another application]

    subgraph Docker Compose Project
        B
        C
        D
    end

Prerequisites

• A server with a fresh Linux distribution.
• A domain name pointing to your server's IP address.
• Docker and Docker Compose.
• Open TCP ports 80 and 443.
• SSH access to your server.
• Basic knowledge of Docker and command-line tools.

Project structure

The example requires a single Docker Compose configuration:

yii-angie-demo/
└── docker-compose.yml

Configuring Docker Compose

Create docker-compose.yml with the following configuration. Replace:

• admin@example.com with your email address;
• registry.example.com/yii-app:1.0.0 with your application image;
• example-demo.example.com with the domain pointing to your server.

services:
  angie-proxy:
    image: angiesoftware/proxy:latest
    environment:
      - ANGIE_ACME_EMAIL=admin@example.com
      - ANGIE_ACME_URL=https://acme-v02.api.letsencrypt.org/directory
      - ANGIE_RESOLVER=1.1.1.1 8.8.8.8
      - ANGIE_RESOLVER_VALID=300s
      - ANGIE_PROXY_NETWORK=proxy
    ports:
      - "80:80"
      - "443:443"
    volumes:
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/tmp/docker.sock:ro
      - angie_acme:/var/lib/angie/acme
    networks:
      - proxy

  yii-app:
    image: registry.example.com/yii-app:1.0.0
    environment:
      - VIRTUAL_HOST=example-demo.example.com
      - VIRTUAL_PORT=80
    networks:
      - proxy

networks:
  proxy:
    name: proxy

volumes:
  angie_acme:

VIRTUAL_HOST is the application's public domain.

VIRTUAL_PORT is the container's internal port to which Angie should proxy requests.

Angie Docker Proxy automatically discovers VIRTUAL_HOST and VIRTUAL_PORT from the environment variables and issues certificates using the Angie ACME module and Let's Encrypt.

Starting the services

Start the proxy and application containers:

docker compose up -d

Adding another application

To expose another application, add it to services in docker-compose.yml and attach it to the proxy network:

services:
  second-app:
    image: traefik/whoami
    environment:
      - VIRTUAL_HOST=example-demo2.example.com
      - VIRTUAL_PORT=80
    networks:
      - proxy

Apply the changes:

docker compose up -d

How it works

Angie Docker Proxy monitors the Docker API and discovers containers configured with VIRTUAL_HOST and VIRTUAL_PORT. It generates the Angie configuration, obtains TLS certificates using ACME, and forwards incoming requests to the corresponding containers through the shared Docker network.

When containers are added, removed, or updated, the proxy regenerates its configuration and performs a graceful reload. Existing connections continue to be handled while the updated configuration is applied.

For configuration options and implementation details, see the Angie Docker Proxy documentation.

Verification

Check the containers:

docker compose ps

Check the HTTP redirect:

curl -I http://example-demo.example.com/

Expected result:

HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
Location: https://example-demo.example.com/

Check HTTPS:

curl -I https://example-demo.example.com/

Expected result:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: Angie/...

Check the certificate:

echo | openssl s_client \
  -connect example-demo.example.com:443 \
  -servername example-demo.example.com 2>/dev/null \
  | openssl x509 -noout -issuer -subject -dates

Expected issuer:

Let's Encrypt

Logs

Proxy logs:

docker compose logs -f angie-proxy

Stopping the services

Stop the services:

docker compose down

Stop the services and remove the certificates:

docker compose down -v

Limitations

This setup is intended for Docker Compose. Kubernetes doesn't expose workloads through the Docker API and requires an Ingress or Gateway API controller. Docker Swarm also uses the Docker API, but Swarm deployment isn't covered in this guide.

For more information

• Angie Docker Proxy documentation
• Yii Application Template
• Docker in Yii Application Templates
• Docker Compose documentation