This document discusses optimizing a development process by migrating from a VirtualBox setup to using Warden, an open source Docker development environment. It outlines issues with the old VirtualBox setup such as slow performance and high resource usage. Requirements for a new setup include fast environments, security, ability to run multiple projects, and compatibility across operating systems. Several solutions were analyzed and Warden was selected for its features like Traefik for routing, Portainer for visibility, and easy project migration. The document demonstrates how to install Warden and migrate a local Magento 2 project, including commands for common development tasks.

1. Optimise the
development process
with simple tips and tricks
Alin Alexandru - CTO Innobyte | 08.10.2021

3. Agenda
➢ Old development setup
➢ Reported issues
➢ Requirements for new setup
➢ Analized solutions
➢ Winner
➢ How we use it

4. Old development setup
➢ Based on Virtual Box
➢ Configured with ansible (in house roles)
➢ Using NFS/Samba share

5. Reported issues
Time consuming to configure a project
You had to wait until all the packages were installed on an Ubuntu based image (30-
40 minutes)
Bad performance
● Mainly because of Xdebug and NFS/Samba share
● For frontend developers was a nightmare to work
Resource intensive
Each VM was consuming 4-8GB of ram.

6. Requirements for new setup
Fast environment
● Xdebug needs to be active only when you are debugging
● Frontend developers don’t need Xdebug
Secure
Most of the docker setup binds to 0.0.0.0:80, 0.0.0.0:443
Capable to run multiple projects in parallel
Sometimes you need to wait for a time consuming task, while you could work on
something else.

7. Requirements for new setup
Linux/Windows/Mac compatible
Each developer is free to use what OS prefers
Compatible with existing structure
Changing project structure will break existing Merge requests / Pull Requests
Easy to migrate project
Migrations should be made in 2-4 hours
Easy to start new projects
Starting a project from scratch should be straightforward

8. Requirements for new setup
Can support other planforms
Symfony or Wordpress
Documented
Documentation became a must, as our inhouse solution didn’t have any
Easy to extend
Be capable to add our tools/scripts
Supported
The project should be active and have a community

9. Analized solutions
Warden
https://warden.dev/
Dockergento
https://github.com/ModestCoders/magento2-dockergento
Meanbee
https://github.com/meanbee/docker-magento2
M Academy
https://github.com/markshust/docker-magento

10. Meet Warden

11. Warden architecture

13. Feature List
➢ Traefik for SSL termination and routing/proxying requests into the correct
containers
➢ Portainer for quick visibility into what's running inside the local Docker host
➢ Dnsmasq to serve DNS responses for .test domains eliminating manual editing
of /etc/hosts
➢ An SSH tunnel for connecting from Sequel Pro or TablePlus into any one of
multiple running database containers
➢ Warden issued wildcard SSL certificates for running https on all local
development domains.

14. Feature List
➢ Full support for Magento 1, Magento 2, Laravel, and custom project
environment configurations
➢ Mailhog to easily test emails
➢ ElasticHQ for Management and Monitoring Elasticsearch
➢ Intelligent Nginx routing, so that request are passed to container with Xdebug
only when cookie is present
➢ Easy to profile performance with blackfire
➢ You can write your own commands in ~/.warden/commands/ or inside project
folder in .warden/commands/

15. Feature List
➢ Support for Magento2 Commerce spit database
➢ Can run Magento Functional Testing Framework
https://docs.warden.dev/configuration/mftf.html
➢ Allure Reporting https://docs.warden.dev/configuration/reporting.html
➢ Easy setup multiple domains
https://docs.warden.dev/configuration/multipledomains.html
➢ Easy to customize an environment
https://docs.warden.dev/environments/customizing.html
➢ Support for Magepack advanced JS bundling

16. Installation
Requires only Homebrew,
Docker, and Docker Compose to
get started, and Mutagen on
macOS (for Magento 2 file sync).
brew install davidalger/warden/warden
warden svc up

17. Migrate local running project
➢ warden env-init project-name magento2
➢ Edit .env if needed
➢ warden svc up - to start global services
➢ warden sign-certificate project-name.test
➢ warden env up - to start project containers
➢ pv|cat /path/to/dump.sql.gz | gunzip -c | warden db import
➢ Open https://app.project-name.test

18. frontend
development
➢ warden shell
➢ npm install
➢ grunt clean
➢ grunt exec:<theme>
➢ grunt less:<theme>
➢ grunt watch
https://docs.warden.dev/configu
ration/livereload.html

19. How we use it
Inspired by https://github.com/davidalger/warden-env-magento2
➢ Created our own warden commands - git project cloned in
~/.warden/commands/
○ m2-bootstrap - runs all commands needed to setup a M2 environment
○ m2-dump - makes a DB dump from an (stage/prod) environment and
copies it locally (uses n98-magerun2)
○ m2-media - synchronize pub/media from an (stage/prod) environment
➢ Maintain app/etc/n98-magerun2.yml to skip tables that needs to be excluded
https://github.com/netz98/n98-magerun/wiki/Stripped-Database-Dumps
➢ Created our own app/etc/env.php.init.php which contains good enough initial
default values

20. How we use it
➢ app/etc/env.php.warden.php - is a git versioned file that contains setting
commun on dev environment. app/etc/env.php is a symlink to this file
○ Email settings - to use mailhog
○ base_url - website url
○ 3rd party API settings - Ex: google reCaptcha
➢ app/etc/config.php - contains common settings on all stage/prod environments.
Ex: asset settings (minify css, combine, etc)

21. Now use case to start a project
➢ warden m2-dump --stage stage1
➢ warden m2-bootstrap --db-dump dump.sql.gz
➢ warden m2-media --stage stage1
Estimated finish time: 5-10 minutes
Previously 2-3h with a lot of manual steps and high changes to fail

22. Demo

23. Thank you!
Q&A
Alin Alexandru - CTO Innobyte | 08.10.2021
alin.alexandru@innobyte.com