Dockerizing Production PHP 8.4 Applications: Multi-Stage Builds, Alpine Images, and Non-Root Users

Container Image Optimization & Attack Surface Reduction

Bloated Docker images containing compilers, build dependencies, and root execution privileges pose severe security risks and slow down deployment pipelines. Multi-stage Docker builds separate build dependencies (Composer, Node.js) from the final lean runtime container.

Non-Root Privilege Enforcement

Never run PHP containers as root. Always declare and switch to an unprivileged system user (e.g., USER www-data) in your final production Dockerfile layer.