platform/docs/adr/0003-nginx-fpm-per-site.md
Bart Van Geyt 9f819df4d9 Phase 0: architecture docs, ADRs, and repo scaffold
Establish the design foundation for the heleosv2 multi-tenant hosting
platform before any implementation code:

- Monorepo skeleton: docs/, platform-infra/, site-templates/,
  deployments/, control-panel/ with orientation READMEs.
- docs/: roadmap index, architecture + threat model, naming conventions,
  site profiles, provisioning workflow, backup & DR runbook, repo/GitOps
  layout, and the approved architecture plan.
- docs/adr/: 9 ADRs recording the rationale for single-host Compose,
  Traefik edge, nginx+fpm split, shared MariaDB, ZFS-per-customer,
  decoupled backup streams, Forgejo, CLI-first, and SFTP-only.
- Secrets hygiene: .gitignore (only *.enc.* committed) and .gitattributes
  (LF for scripts/Dockerfiles/YAML run on the Linux host).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-07 12:26:00 +02:00

1.1 KiB

ADR 0003 — Per-site nginx + php-fpm behind Traefik

Status: Accepted

Context

Traefik terminates TLS and routes but cannot talk FastCGI to php-fpm. PHP sites need something that serves static assets and bridges HTTP→FastCGI. Options: one combined nginx+fpm image, Caddy-with-php_fastcgi (single process), or the classic split of nginx and php-fpm into two containers.

Decision

Each PHP site runs nginx + php-fpm as two containers within its own compose project, sharing the web-root volume. Traefik routes to the site's nginx; nginx proxies .php to that site's php-fpm.

Consequences

  • Conventional, extremely well-documented pattern.
  • PHP runtime can be patched/pinned per site independently of the web server.
  • nginx cannot execute PHP outside the fpm boundary; php-fpm runs non-root.
  • Two containers per PHP site increases container count and compose verbosity.
  • ↔️ Caddy-single-container remains a valid future simplification for low-traffic sites; revisit if container density becomes a concern. Static and redirect profiles avoid php-fpm entirely.