Docker Networking - nginx: [emerg] host not found in upstream

I have recently started migrating to Docker 1.9 and Docker-Compose 1.5's networking features to replace using links.

So far with links there were no problems with nginx connecting to my php5-fpm fastcgi server located in a different server in one group via docker-compose. Newly though when I run docker-compose --x-networking up my php-fpm, mongo and nginx containers boot up, however nginx quits straight away with [emerg] 1#1: host not found in upstream "waapi_php_1" in /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf:16

However, if I run the docker-compose command again while the php and mongo containers are running (nginx exited), nginx starts and works fine from then on.

This is my docker-compose.yml file:

nginx:
  image: nginx
  ports:
    - "42080:80"
  volumes:
    - ./config/docker/nginx/default.conf:/etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf:ro

php:
  build: config/docker/php
  ports:
    - "42022:22"
  volumes:
    - .:/var/www/html
  env_file: config/docker/php/.env.development

mongo:
  image: mongo
  ports:
    - "42017:27017"
  volumes:
    - /var/mongodata/wa-api:/data/db
  command: --smallfiles

This is my default.conf for nginx:

server {
    listen  80;

    root /var/www/test;

    error_log /dev/stdout debug;
    access_log /dev/stdout;

    location / {
        # try to serve file directly, fallback to app.php
        try_files $uri /index.php$is_args$args;
    }

    location ~ ^/.+\.php(/|$) {
        # Referencing the php service host (Docker)
        fastcgi_pass waapi_php_1:9000;

        fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.*)$;
        include fastcgi_params;

        # We must reference the document_root of the external server ourselves here.
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME /var/www/html/public$fastcgi_script_name;

        fastcgi_param HTTPS off;
    }
}

How can I get nginx to work with only a single docker-compose call?

There is a possibility to use "volumes_from" as a workaround until depends_on feature (discussed below) is introduced. All you have to do is change your docker-compose file as below:

nginx:
  image: nginx
  ports:
    - "42080:80"
  volumes:
    - ./config/docker/nginx/default.conf:/etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf:ro
  volumes_from:
    - php

php:
  build: config/docker/php
  ports:
    - "42022:22"
  volumes:
    - .:/var/www/html
  env_file: config/docker/php/.env.development

mongo:
  image: mongo
  ports:
    - "42017:27017"
  volumes:
    - /var/mongodata/wa-api:/data/db
  command: --smallfiles

One big caveat in the above approach is that the volumes of php are exposed to nginx, which is not desired. But at the moment this is one docker specific workaround that could be used.

depends_on feature This probably would be a futuristic answer. Because the functionality is not yet implemented in Docker (as of 1.9)

There is a proposal to introduce "depends_on" in the new networking feature introduced by Docker. But there is a long running debate about the same @ https://github.com/docker/compose/issues/374 Hence, once it is implemented, the feature depends_on could be used to order the container start-up, but at the moment, you would have to resort to one of the following:

1. make nginx retry until the php server is up - I would prefer this one
2. use volums_from workaround as described above - I would avoid using this, because of the volume leakage into unnecessary containers.