RoadRunner

What is RoadRunner?

RoadRunner is a high-performance PHP application server written in Go, an alternative to PHP-FPM for keeping long-running PHP worker processes alive between requests instead of bootstrapping your app from scratch every time. It's a supported driver for Laravel Octane. The Laradock image pulls the official rr binary and layers it on a PHP-CLI Alpine image with the sockets and opcache extensions installed, then serves your mounted app via its .rr.yaml config (CMD ["rr", "serve"]).

Start RoadRunner

docker compose up -d roadrunner

RoadRunner is self-contained: it doesn't declare a dependency on php-fpm or a web server, it serves your app directly via the rr binary.

Stop RoadRunner

docker compose stop roadrunner

Configuration

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

Variable	Default	What it does
ROADRUNNER_VERSION	2025.1.15	Version of the official RoadRunner image the rr binary is pulled from (build arg).
ROADRUNNER_HTTP_PORT	8090	Host-side port mapped to container port 8080.

The container also builds against LARADOCK_PHP_VERSION (Laradock's shared PHP_VERSION) and CHANGE_SOURCE, and adds an extra_hosts entry for dockerhost pointing at DOCKER_HOST_IP.

Set up Octane with RoadRunner

1. In your Laravel app, install Octane with the RoadRunner driver:

   composer require laravel/octane spiral/roadrunner-cli
   php artisan octane:install --server=roadrunner

   This generates a .rr.yaml file. Set its HTTP address to 0.0.0.0:8080 so it's reachable from outside the container.
2. Start the container:

   docker compose up -d roadrunner

3. Your app is served on the host at ROADRUNNER_HTTP_PORT (8090 by default), mapped to container port 8080.

Change the exposed port

ROADRUNNER_HTTP_PORT=8095

docker compose up -d roadrunner

Common issues

• Container starts but nothing responds. .rr.yaml needs its HTTP address set to 0.0.0.0:8080, not 127.0.0.1:8080, otherwise it only listens inside its own network namespace.
• .rr.yaml not found. It's generated by php artisan octane:install --server=roadrunner inside your Laravel app; run that first, and confirm your app code is mounted correctly via APP_CODE_PATH_HOST.
• Extension-related errors. The image only installs sockets and opcache by default; additional extensions need to be added to roadrunner/Dockerfile and the image rebuilt: docker compose build roadrunner.
• Port already in use on your host. Another service is already bound to 8090. Change ROADRUNNER_HTTP_PORT and restart.

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Want another Octane-compatible runtime? See FrankenPHP. Looking for the classic Nginx + PHP-FPM setup instead? See Nginx. New to Laradock? Start with Getting Started.