wordpress-docker-compose-xdebug3

A Docker compose yml creating a WordPress stack with Xdebug3 for development purpose.

Somehow the default XDEBUG_CONFIG env variable does not work correctly:

https://xdebug.org/docs/all_settings

A select set of settings can be set through an XDEBUG_CONFIG environment variable. In this situation, the xdebug. part should be dropped from the setting name.

but not to fear, this image ENTRYPOINT writes XDEBUG_CONFIG env variable values inside a configuration file (/usr/local/etc/php/conf.d/docker-php-ext-xdebug.ini) at container startup, before calling the original Apache ENTRYPOINT script docker-entrypoint.sh apache2-foreground. So, instead of supporting only some settings dropping xdebug. from the setting name :

A select set of settings can be set through an XDEBUG_CONFIG environment variable. In this situation, the xdebug. part should be dropped from the setting name.

environment:
     XDEBUG_CONFIG: |
        mode=debug,develop
        client_host=host.docker.internal
        client_port=9003
        idekey="phpdebugkey"

You can pass all the settings as you write them on the configuration file, using the original settings name (still using xdebug. prefix )

environment:
      XDEBUG_CONFIG: |
        xdebug.mode=debug,develop
        xdebug.client_host=host.docker.internal
        xdebug.client_port=9003
        xdebug.idekey="phpdebugkey"

host.docker.internal should work both on Windows and MacOS DockerDesktop, anyway it can be replaced with the internal IP address used by your host machine.

IDE Settings

IDE setting is quite easy and straight-forward, for example in NetBeans 12.3 put port 9003 and idekey phpdebugkey as stated inside the docker-compose.yml

If it still not works create a PHP file inside the container web directory with

xdebug_info();

to check if Xdebug configuration is set properly... If that does not works, check whether a firewall is active and if it is silently dropping or refusing connection to the 9003 port or if the port is not free for Xdebug.