PHP 8 and GDLib in the Docker container

If you run your own server in order to run your personal or company homepage, you usually need a current PHP version. Most common content management solutions (CMS) also require the correct activation of GDLib. The GDLib is a graphics library for various graphic formats such as PNG and JPEG. However, since support for PHP 7.4 ended, many homepage operators now need to update to PHP 8.1 or higher.

Such an update is quite easy thanks to the use of the official PHP Docker container on DockerHub. Unfortunately, the image comes without additional extensions. They then have to be installed additionally. Here you can use Dockerfile to create your own creation from the original image, which contains all the necessary extensions such as database connections and graphics libraries. In this article I will not go into the creation of a customized PHP Docker image, but will specifically show the problems that arise when installing GDLib. Because a little has changed here when switching from PHP 7 to PHP 8.

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WordPress REST API is unreachable

From time to time it happens that the REST API cannot be accessed when working with WordPress. This proves to be problematic, because so important functions of the blog software can not be used. In addition to a variety of plugins, the Gutenberg Bock Editor also fails its service. If you want to save an article, you often get a cryptic message that JSON has caused an error.

So we can already without deep investigation very quickly determine from the functioning of our WordPress installation, whether the REST API is accessible. If you still want to be on the safe side and see in black and white if the REST API is working correctly on your own WordPress installation, you can do this in two different ways. The first way is to call the URL /wp-json/. Where the tag must be replaced with your own IP or domain to WordPress. If you get a JSON object like in image 1 everything is correct.

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