LimeSurvey – Extension of Apache Base Image

The LimeSurvey Image is based on our base Apache with current latest PHP version.

How to get this container run

Minimal usage is to provide at least mandatory environmental variables from next chapter – so base usage can look like this [given that there is a Docker container databasecontainer within the Docker network internal and the given user credentials]:

docker run \
   --rm -d -P \
   --network internal \
   -e DB_HOST=databasecontainer \
   -e DB_NAME=database \
   -e DB_USER=user \
   -e DB_PASS=password \
   -e LIMESURVEY_ADMIN=admin \
   -e LIMESURVEY_ADMIN_PASS='$uper-secur3' \
   -e LIMESURVEY_ADMIN_NAME=Admin \
   -e LIMESURVEY_ADMIN_MAIL='admin@example.net' \
   -e LIMESURVEY_SHOW_SCRIPT_NAME=true \
   devopsansiblede/limesurvey:latest

Environmental Variables

This image is customizable by these environmental variables:

env	default	mandatory	change recommended	description	comment
RUNTIMEFOLDER	/var/www/limesurvey	no	no	folder LimeSurvey puts the runtime files like sessions in
DB_USER		yes	yes	database user
DB_PASS		yes	yes	password for database user $DB_USER
DB_NAME	$DB_USER	no	yes	database the user $DB_USER will work on for LimeSurvey
DB_HOST		yes	yes	host of database $DB_NAME
DB_PREFIX	"lime_"	no	no	prefix for all LimeSurvey-Tables within database
LIMESURVEY_ADMIN		yes	yes	username for LimeSurvey super admin
LIMESURVEY_ADMIN_PASS		yes	yes	password for super admin $LIMESURVEY_ADMIN
LIMESURVEY_ADMIN_NAME		yes	yes	real name for super admin $LIMESURVEY_ADMIN
LIMESURVEY_ADMIN_MAIL		yes	yes	e-mail address for super admin $LIMESURVEY_ADMIN
LIMESURVEY_DEFAULT_LANG		no	yes	abbreviation of default language to use	LimeSurvey defaults to en
LIMESURVEY_TITLE		no	yes	Title of LimeSurvey instance	defaults to LimeSurvey
ADMIN_THEME_NAME		no	yes	theme name for admin theme to be activated
DEFAULT_TEMPLATE		no	yes	theme name for survey theme	has to be installed through the admin interface before it can be activated through this setting since there are done complex parsing steps during installation of a theme
LDAP_SERVER		no	yes	ldap server	mandatory for activating ldap configuration; every LDAP variable without default has to be defined – else installation will fail
LDAP_PORT	389	no	yes	port for ldap connection
LDAP_VERSION	3	no	no	ldap version to use
LDAP_TLS	0	no		0 or 1 – whether TLS should not or should be activated
LDAP_SEARCH_USER_ATTRIBUTE	uid	no		search attribute for users
LDAP_USER_PREFIX	''	no		set userprefix for ldap binds
LDAP_USER_SUFFIX	''	no		set usersuffix for ldap binds
LDAP_USER_SEARCH_BASE	ou=people,dc=example,dc=com	no	yes	ldap search base
LDAP_BIND_DN	cn=admin,dc=example,dc=com	no	yes	ldap user / authority to check binds
LDAP_BIND_PASS		no	yes	password for ldap user / authority $LDAP_BIND_DN
LDAP_MAIL_ATTRIBUTE	mail	no		ldap attribute for logged in users to be fetched as mail attribute to LimeSurvey
LDAP_FULLNAME_ATTRIBUTE	displayName	no		ldap attribute interpreted as fullname for logged in users in LimeSurvey
LDAP_IS_DEFAULT	1	no	yes	1 or 0 – whether ldap login should or not be default login method
LDAP_AUTOCREATE	1	no	yes	1 or 0 – whether login through ldap should create LimeSurvey user
LDAP_ALLOW_CREATION_TO_LOGGEDIN	''	no	yes
LDAP_GROUP_SEARCH_BASE	ou=groups,dc=example,dc=com	no	yes	in which searchbase LimeSurvey should search for groups?
LDAP_GROUP_NAME	limesurvey	no	yes	group name an user should belong to for a successful login to LimeSurvey

From Apache image it got these environmental variables for further usage:

env	default	mandatory	change recommended	description	comment
PHP_TIMEZONE	"Europe/Berlin"	no	yes	timezone-file to use as default – can be one value selected out of /usr/share/zoneinfo/, i.e. <region>/<city>
APACHE_WORKDIR	/var/www/html	no	no	home folder of apache web application	installation directory for auto installation of LimeSurvey during build process of the image
APACHE_LOG_DIR	/var/log/apache2	no	yes	folder for log files of apache
APACHE_PUBLIC_DIR	$APACHE_WORKDIR	no	yes	folder used within apache configuration to be published – can be usefull if i.e. subfolder public of webproject should be exposed
PHP_XDEBUG	0	no	yes	You can use this to enable xdebug. start-apache2 script will enable xdebug if PHP_XDEBUG is set to 1
YESWWW	false	no	yes	Duplicate content has to be avoided – therefore a decision for containers delivering content of www.domain.tld and domain.tld has to be made which one should be the mainly used one. YESWWW will be overridden by NOWWW if both are true.
NOWWW	false	no	yes	See YESWWW
HTTPS	true	no	yes	relevant for YESWWW and NOWWW since config rules have to be adjusted.
SMTP_HOST		no	yes		should be set to your smtp host, i.e. mail.example.com
SMTP_PORT		no	yes		defaults to 587
SMTP_FROM		no	yes		should be set to your sending from address, i.e. motiontool@example.com
SMTP_USER		no	yes		defaults to SMTP_FROM and has to be the user, you are authenticating on the SMTP_HOST
SMTP_PASS		no	yes		should be set to your plaintext(!) smtp password, i.e. I'am very Secr3t!
WORKINGUSER	www-data	no	no	user that works as apache user – not implemented changable
TERM	xterm	no	no	set terminal type – default xterm provides 16 colors
DEBIAN_FRONTEND	noninteractive	no	no	set frontent to use – default self-explaining

Installed Tools

tool(s)	description
software-properties-common, procps	simplify further installations
python-setuptools, python-pip, python-pkg-resources	simplify python installations
python-jinja2, j2cli	used for template provisioning
python-yaml, python-paramiko	provision Image for further provisioning via Ansible
python-httplib2	Small, fast HTTP client library for Python
python-keyczar	Toolkit for safe and simple cryptography
htop, tree, tmux, screen, sudo, git, zsh, ssh, screen	usefull ops tools – oh-my-zsh is installed further
supervisor	process manager that allows to manage long-running programs
gnupg, openssl	encryption tools
curl, wget	fetch remote content
mysql-client, libpq-dev, postgresql-client, sqlite3, libsqlite3-dev	install database things – except of SQLite3 no real database is installed since full databases should run at least on a separate container
libkrb5-dev, libc-client-dev	devtools especially for email
zlib1g-dev	compression library
libfreetype6-dev, libjpeg62-turbo-dev, libmcrypt-dev, libpng-dev	simplify working with and on images
nodejs	javascript development tools
composer	php package manager
msmtp, msmtp-mta	simple and easy to use SMTP client replacing sendmail

PHP Libraries installed

imap, pdo, pdo_mysql, imap, zip, gd, exif, mcrypt

PHP Modules enabled

rewrite

Files to be aware of

/templates/apache.j2 – the Apache Config

The apache config used within containers of this image. It will be provisioned at every start of the container – so you should consider to mount a new template instead of mounting a default apache config directly.

Full Template

<VirtualHost *:80>

    ServerAdmin root
    DocumentRoot {{ APACHE_PUBLIC_DIR | default(APACHE_WORKDIR) }}

    <Directory {{ APACHE_PUBLIC_DIR | default(APACHE_WORKDIR) }}/>
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
        AllowOverride All
        Order deny,allow
        Allow from all
    </Directory>

    AccessFileName .htaccess
	<FilesMatch "^\.ht">
		Require all denied
	</FilesMatch>

    LogFormat "%v:%p %h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %O \"%{Referer}i\" \"%{User-Agent}i\"" vhost_combined
	LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %O \"%{Referer}i\" \"%{User-Agent}i\"" combined
	LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %O" common
	LogFormat "%{Referer}i -> %U" referer
	LogFormat "%{User-agent}i" agent

    CustomLog /proc/self/fd/1 combined

    <FilesMatch \.php$>
		SetHandler application/x-httpd-php
	</FilesMatch>

    ErrorLog {{ APACHE_LOG_DIR }}/error.log
    CustomLog {{ APACHE_LOG_DIR }}/access.log combined

    # Multiple DirectoryIndex directives within the same context will add
	# to the list of resources to look for rather than replace
	# https://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/mod/mod_dir.html#directoryindex
	DirectoryIndex disabled
	DirectoryIndex index.php index.html

</VirtualHost>

last built

2026-03-05 04:54:24