In part 1 I set up a Raspberry Pi 5 as an always-on dev box: code-server running as a systemd service, and a single PHP/MySQL/Vite project running inside Docker Compose. The whole point of keeping the host clean — no PHP, no Node, no MySQL installed directly on the Pi — was that the Pi was never going to stay a single-project machine. Sooner or later I’d want to run something else next to it without the two stacks fighting each other. This post is what happens when “sooner or later” arrives.
Running More Than One Stack on the Same Pi
The PHP/MySQL/Vite project is the one I’ve been using as an example, but the whole point of keeping the host clean is that it’s never just one project. The Pi doesn’t care what language a project is written in — it just needs a Compose file and a free range of ports.
The pattern I follow is simple and boring, which is exactly what you want:
- One folder per project, each with its own
docker-compose.yml. - One Docker network per project (Compose creates this automatically from the folder name), so services in different projects can’t accidentally see each other.
- A port allocation note in my own head — or in a text file — so projects don’t collide on the host ports.