Caddy

What is Caddy?

Caddy is a modern web server best known for automatic HTTPS: it can provision and renew TLS certificates with zero manual config. Laradock runs it as an alternative to Nginx or Apache, driven by a single Caddyfile.

Start Caddy

docker compose up -d caddy

Caddy's compose.yml declares depends_on: php-fpm, so Compose starts it automatically. Add whatever else your app needs, for example:

docker compose up -d caddy mysql workspace

Stop Caddy

docker compose stop caddy

Configuration

All settings live in caddy/defaults.env and can be overridden by adding the same line to your own .env:

Variable	Default	What it does
CADDY_HOST_HTTP_PORT	80	Host-side port mapped to container port 80.
CADDY_HOST_HTTPS_PORT	443	Host-side port mapped to container port 443.
CADDY_HOST_LOG_PATH	./logs/caddy	Host folder mounted to /var/log/caddy.
CADDY_CONFIG_PATH	./caddy/caddy	Host folder mounted to /etc/caddy, containing the Caddyfile.

Caddy's certificate/state data (/root/.caddy inside the container) is stored under DATA_PATH_HOST, the same shared data folder used by other Laradock services.

The Caddyfile

The shipped caddy/caddy/Caddyfile serves the app with automatic HTTPS out of the box:

laradock.test {
    root * /var/www/public
    php_fastcgi php-fpm:9000
    file_server

    encode zstd gzip
    tls internal
}

php_fastcgi php-fpm:9000 proxies PHP requests straight to the php-fpm container, and tls internal tells Caddy to mint a locally trusted certificate rather than reaching out to Let's Encrypt, which is what you want for local development. Edit the server_name (laradock.test) and root to match your app, then rebuild:

docker compose build caddy
docker compose up -d caddy

Use a real domain with public HTTPS

For a publicly reachable domain, replace tls internal with your email (or remove the tls line entirely) so Caddy requests a certificate from Let's Encrypt instead:

yourdomain.com {
    root * /var/www/public
    php_fastcgi php-fpm:9000
    file_server
}

Your domain needs to resolve to the host running Laradock, and CADDY_HOST_HTTP_PORT/CADDY_HOST_HTTPS_PORT need to be reachable on 80/443 for the ACME challenge to succeed.

Change the exposed port

CADDY_HOST_HTTP_PORT=8080
CADDY_HOST_HTTPS_PORT=8443

docker compose up -d caddy

Common issues

• Browser doesn't trust the certificate. tls internal issues a certificate from Caddy's local CA, not a public one. Trust that CA locally, or use a public domain with Let's Encrypt as described above.
• 502 from Caddy. Confirm php-fpm is running and reachable at php-fpm:9000, the address hardcoded in the shipped Caddyfile.
• Changes to the Caddyfile don't take effect. The Caddyfile is baked into the image by the Dockerfile (COPY ./caddy/Caddyfile /etc/caddy/Caddyfile), so after editing it you need to rebuild, not just restart: docker compose build caddy && docker compose up -d caddy.
• Port already in use on your host. Another web server (or another Laradock project) is already bound to 80/443. Change CADDY_HOST_HTTP_PORT/CADDY_HOST_HTTPS_PORT and restart.

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Need a different web server? See Nginx or Apache. New to Laradock? Start with Getting Started.