Updated 2020-06-16 – Demyx 1.x.x
First of all, what the heck is Demyx?
Demyx is a Docker image that automates and manages WordPress installations. Traefik for reverse proxy with Lets Encrypt SSL/TLS. WordPress sites are powered by NGINX, PHP, and MariaDB.
https://demyx.sh
Step 1. DigitalOcean
Now that’s out of the way, this article will show you a step-by-step guide on how to use Demyx. I’ve tested this briefly on Debian, Ubuntu, and CentOS; all works fine but CentOS needs some minor tweaks. I have Alpine Linux on all my servers so of course it 100% works. I’ll be using DigitalOcean for this guide, using their pre-made Docker droplet in the marketplace running Ubuntu 18.04 x64.
Step 2. Install
Run this command to run the install script. It will download all the necessary Docker images that Demyx uses. After it downloads the images, please fill out the prompts. After you install, you will see my own MOTD (Message of the Day).
Notice on the screenshot below that I’ve enabled Traefik dashboard and code-server. You can see/edit the credentials via: demyx host edit
. See Step 6 for more details.
bash -c "$(curl -sL https://demyx.sh/install)"
Step 3. WordPress
Demyx is preconfigured to always use HTTPS. The MOTD the available stacks you can use, for this example, I will be using a regular WordPress install. Don’t know what Bedrock is? Visit their site: https://roots.io/bedrock/.
- —stack=bedrock – WordPress running Root’s Bedrock nginx-php stack
- —stack=nginx-php – WordPress running default stack
- —stack=ols – WordPress running OpenLiteSpeed stack
- —stack=ols-bedrock – WordPress running Root’s Bedrock in OpenLiteSpeed stack
# Creating a regular WordPress site demyx run demyx.xyz # Creating a Bedrock site demyx run demyx.xyz --stack=bedrock
After the site installs, you will be presented with a table of useful information. To see all of the site’s settings/variables: demyx edit demyx.xyz
.
Step 4. Congratulations!

YAY! You made your first Demyx app! Notice how we didn’t touch a single Docker command? That’s because it was to make my life easier and now it can make yours a little better too!
Step 5. Create more sites
Step 6. Bonus
But wait, there’s more! Demyx comes packed with features that’s available in the help menu. I will be showing you some notable ones.
Traefik Dashboard
This is disabled by default; during install, it prompted you to enable it. Don’t worry if you set it to false. You can always enable it via demyx host edit
then restart the Demyx container: demyx host restart
. In order to enable it, you will need to set your IP address in DEMYX_HOST_IP
due to it being IP whitelisted. You can also change the subdomain of the dashboard.
# demyx host edit DEMYX_HOST_TRAEFIK_DASHBOARD=true DEMYX_HOST_TRAEFIK_DASHBOARD_DOMAIN=traefik DEMYX_HOST_IP=1.2.3.4

Demyx Browser
Same thing with the Traefik Dashboard, the prompts during install would’ve asked you to enable the file browser. Just like with Traefik, please make sure to set your IP address because, it too, is IP whitelisted. DEMYX_HOST_CODE
must be set to true in order to enable the file browser, DEMYX_HOST_CODE_DOMAIN
is the subdomain to access it. Change these variables to whatever you please.
If you do decide to change the generated password, then PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE use a strong password. The file browser has a terminal and it also can execute Docker and Demyx commands.
# demyx host edit DEMYX_HOST_CODE=true DEMYX_HOST_CODE_DOMAIN=code DEMYX_HOST_CODE_PASSWORD=<generated password here>

ctop
ctop is htop, but for containers! If you look at the screenshot, you can see all running containers. The ctop binary is included in the Demyx image.
# Execute docker command into demyx demyx shell ctop
code-server and browser-sync
Demyx has a feature that will turn a WordPress site into development mode. It replaces the current WordPress container with a modified code-server and spins up a browser-sync container. The code-server container has xDebug and WordPress Coding Standard installed to help you during development.
# Enable development mode demyx config demyx.xyz --dev # Disable development mode demyx config demyx.xyz --dev=false
phpMyAdmin
Demyx comes shipped with phpMyAdmin that’s auto configured when running.
# Enable phpMyAdmin demyx config demyx.xyz --pma # Disable phpMyAdmin demyx config demyx.xyz --pma=false
SFTP
Demyx comes with a preconfigured OpenSSH image that has root and password authentication disabled. Only accessible via public key.
# Command executed on the host OS demyx cmd config demyx.ddns.net --sftp # Command executed inside demyx demyx config demyx.ddns.net --sftp
Step 8. Conclusion
Demyx has a bunch of features that’s too long to list in this article so feel free to explore the help menu. If you have anymore questions, then please come join me in my channel at Freenode: #demyx.
12 responses to “How to easily manage multiple WordPress sites in Docker using Demyx”
Demyx looks very interesting, I am going to check it on weekend 😉
Do you also consider of adding features like only html site container (I’m a fan of Hugo static) or php+mysql containers?
Hi Arek,
Yes I’m planning to implement support for html/php containers as soon as the commands for WordPress containers are stable. It might happen very soon! I did plan ahead and put the folder structure as a placeholder:
So I tested a script and it is great, in my opinion one of the best for automation of docker and wordpress.
But after a week, when I was trying to add another domain to the server I’m receiving message like this when I type any of demyx command:
“error during connect: Get http://demyx_socket:2375/v1.40/containers/json: dial tcp: lookup demyx_socket on 127.0.0.11:53: no such host”
Do you know what can cause this issue?
Hi, I’ve updated the socket. In the future, you shouldn’t have these issues anymore. Can you run this on the host?
demyx update –system
If that doesn’t work, then feel free to ask for help in real time in my IRC channel: https://webchat.freenode.net/?channel=#demyx
Hi,
saw your post in the roots.io forum and looked through your code in github.
Very nice, good work. Really like your design of your commands and the aspect of bundling tasks.
I’m a big fan of automation scripts and played intensively with ansible for provisioning for quite a while.
Because I looking for something like demyx, I wonder how you manage your developments and realize your deployment strategy. Are you doing your dev work and customizations via code-server directly on the server or do you make your work locally and push/sync it via git oder sftp?
Lookin forward to hear from you.
Hi aarkiin,
Thank you for the compliments! I try to be as neat as I can when coding and commenting 😊. I do everything in code-server and remotely too! I haven’t dev locally on my laptop for a long time now. As for deployment, I wrote my own bash script that chains commands.
#!/bin/bash
cd /demyx/web/app/themes/demyx
# Disable module.hot.accept()
sed -i "s|module.hot.accept|//module.hot.accept|g" /demyx/web/app/themes/demyx/resources/assets/scripts/main.js
if [[ "$1" = push ]]; then
git push
else
yarn build:production
# Exit if build fails
if [[ "$?" != 0 ]]; then
echo '############################'
echo '# #'
echo '# BUILD FAILED! #'
echo '# #'
echo '############################'
exit 1
fi
composer install --no-dev
git add .
git commit -m "$1"
git push
composer install
fi
# Enable module.hot.accept()
sed -i "s|//module.hot.accept|module.hot.accept|g" /demyx/web/app/themes/demyx/resources/assets/scripts/main.js
The script is chmoded and then executed via
~/deploy
. If I don’t have to compile any css/js then I just commit that single file then~/deploy push
, else, it would compile. Here’s my .gitignore:# Include your project-specific ignores in this file
# Read about how to use .gitignore: https://help.github.com/articles/ignoring-files
.cache-loader
.editorconfig
.eslintrc.js
.stylelintrc.js
CHANGELOG.md
CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
LICENSE.md
README.md
phpcs.xml
yarn.lock
composer.json
composer.lock
package-lock.json
package.json
node_modules
npm-debug.log
yarn-error.log
resources/assets
Hi,
Been learning Docker for the past week and what got me into it in the first place was the “dev/prod parity”, which leads me to my question: how do I setup demyx for local development?
I’m really new to Docker so might I also ask if there is a philosophy behind why you would do everything remotely instead? Hoping you could clarify these things for me.
Hi Abe,
Demyx at the moment doesn’t support non SSL setup but that will have to change. The philosophy behind Demyx being SSL first is because I’ve been working remotely for years now on my dev servers. So it made sense to me that SSL has to be priority when working remotely.
Demyx is almost a year old, I started this project with zero knowledge of how Docker worked, so I just kept learning and learning. Once you know how things are structured, you can easily modify Demyx by making custom Dockerfile or modifying the docker-compose.yml. If you’re adventurous enough, you can fork my repo and change the bash scripts.
I hope this clarifies things for you. If not, feel free to reach out to me in the other channels. IRC is probably the effective and fastest way to communicate directly with me.
Intesting project. Does it mean demyx is only suited for wordpress?
can’t be used for other PHP app that’s not wordpress?
Hey thanks for checking my project. At the moment, it’s focused on WordPress for now but there are placeholders I’ve added for HTML and PHP sites. Sorry I’ve missed the opportunity to say hi to you in the #demyx channel; I’m usually online after 7am PST.
Is it possible to setup other dockers with your script?
I’m hoping to install Bitwarden using your script. Is it possible? And what would you suggest be the best way to build such a docker setup with demyx?
Yes of course it’s possible. In one of my servers, I have other Docker images running alongside the demyx stack. Some non-demyx containers running are Rocket Chat, The Lounge, Nextcloud, etc.
All you would need is to use the same demyx network in your docker-compose.yml and the right Traefik labels. Here’s an example of my The Lounge docker-compose.yml:
version: "2.4"
services:
thelounge:
container_name: thelounge
image: demyx/thelounge
cpus: .5
mem_limit: 512m
restart: unless-stopped
volumes:
- thelounge:/var/opt/thelounge
labels:
- "traefik.enable=true"
- "traefik.http.routers.thelounge-http.rule=Host(`domain.tld`)"
- "traefik.http.routers.thelounge-http.entrypoints=http"
- "traefik.http.routers.thelounge-http.middlewares=thelounge-redirect"
- "traefik.http.routers.thelounge-https.rule=Host(`domain.tld`)"
- "traefik.http.routers.thelounge-https.entrypoints=https"
- "traefik.http.routers.thelounge-https.tls.certresolver=demyx"
- "traefik.http.middlewares.thelounge-redirect.redirectscheme.scheme=https"
networks:
- demyx
volumes:
thelounge:
name: thelounge
networks:
demyx:
name: demyx