Question2Answer — Docker

Dockerized Question2Answer (Q2A) 1.8.6, a popular open-source Q&A platform for PHP/MySQL.

Pre-built Docker image with PHP 8.2, Apache, and automatic configuration from environment variables. Used by over 20,000 sites in 40 languages.

Quick Start

docker run -d --name q2a \
  -p 80:80 \
  -e QA_MYSQL_HOSTNAME=your-mysql-host \
  -e QA_MYSQL_USERNAME=q2a \
  -e QA_MYSQL_PASSWORD=your-password \
  -e QA_MYSQL_DATABASE=question2answer \
  ghcr.io/dublyo/question2answer:latest

Then visit http://localhost to complete the setup wizard (creates database tables and admin account).

Docker Compose

services:
  q2a:
    image: ghcr.io/dublyo/question2answer:latest
    depends_on:
      mysql:
        condition: service_healthy
    ports:
      - "80:80"
    environment:
      QA_MYSQL_HOSTNAME: mysql
      QA_MYSQL_USERNAME: q2a
      QA_MYSQL_PASSWORD: changeme123
      QA_MYSQL_DATABASE: question2answer
    volumes:
      - q2a-content:/var/www/html/qa-content
      - q2a-blobs:/var/www/html/qa-blobs

  mysql:
    image: mysql:8.0
    environment:
      MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: rootpassword
      MYSQL_DATABASE: question2answer
      MYSQL_USER: q2a
      MYSQL_PASSWORD: changeme123
    volumes:
      - mysql-data:/var/lib/mysql
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "mysqladmin", "ping", "-h", "localhost"]
      interval: 5s
      timeout: 3s
      retries: 10

volumes:
  q2a-content:
  q2a-blobs:
  mysql-data:

Environment Variables

Variable	Required	Default	Description
QA_MYSQL_HOSTNAME	Yes	—	MySQL hostname or container name
QA_MYSQL_PORT	No	3306	MySQL port
QA_MYSQL_USERNAME	Yes	—	MySQL user
QA_MYSQL_PASSWORD	Yes	—	MySQL password
QA_MYSQL_DATABASE	Yes	—	Database name
QA_MYSQL_TABLE_PREFIX	No	qa_	Table name prefix

How It Works

1. Container starts — entrypoint.sh generates qa-config.php from environment variables
2. MySQL wait — Waits up to 60s for MySQL to be ready
3. Apache starts — PHP 8.2 with MySQLi and mod_rewrite enabled
4. First visit — Q2A's setup wizard creates all database tables and asks for admin credentials
5. Ready — Your Q&A site is live with clean URLs

Persistent Data

Mount these volumes to keep data across container restarts:

Volume	Path	Description
Content	/var/www/html/qa-content	Uploaded files
Blobs	/var/www/html/qa-blobs	Avatars and attachments
MySQL	/var/lib/mysql	Database (on MySQL container)

Features

• Asking and answering questions with voting and best answer selection
• Categories (up to 4 levels deep) and/or tagging
• Points-based reputation, badges, and user management
• Fast integrated search engine
• RSS feeds, email notifications, personal news feeds
• User avatars (or Gravatar) and private messages
• SEO-friendly URLs, XML Sitemaps
• Extensible with themes and plugins
• Spam protection with captchas, rate-limiting, moderation

Dublyo PaaS

This template is available on Dublyo as a one-click deploy. Host it with a managed MySQL database through the dashboard.

License

GPL v2+ (original Question2Answer license)