Caddy Web Server

Required service - Caddy is the reverse proxy that powers all DAMP sites with automatic HTTPS certificates.

Always Required

Caddy is essential for routing traffic to your sites.

Overview

Caddy handles:

🔒 Automatic SSL - Generates certificates for .local domains
🌐 Reverse Proxy - Routes requests to your sites
⚡ HTTP/2 Support - Modern protocol support
🔄 Auto Reload - Configuration updates without downtime

Default Configuration

Image: caddy:latest
Container: damp-web
Ports:
  - 80:80   # HTTP
  - 443:443 # HTTPS
Network: devnet
Volumes:
  - damp_caddy_data:/data
  - damp_caddy_config:/config

Connection Information

From Docker Containers

# Access Caddy API (if enabled)
curl http://damp-web:2019/config/

From Host Machine

# HTTP
http://localhost

# HTTPS (with valid cert for .local domains)
https://mysite.local

Certificate Management

Automatic Certificates

Caddy automatically generates SSL certificates for all .local domains. View certificates in DAMP's Services page.

View Installed Certificates

DAMP displays:

Domain name
Expiration date
Certificate status

Trust Certificates

To trust Caddy's CA certificate on your system:

Click "Install Certificate" in DAMP
Windows will prompt for UAC elevation
Certificate installed to system trust store
Browse to https://yoursite.local without warnings

How Sites Use Caddy

When you create a site, DAMP automatically:

Updates Caddy configuration
Creates reverse proxy rules
Generates SSL certificate for the domain
Reloads Caddy (zero downtime)

┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│   Browser: https://mysite.local         │
└────────────┬────────────────────────────┘
             │
             ↓
┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│   Caddy (damp-web)                      │
│   - Terminates SSL                      │
│   - Reads Caddyfile config              │
│   - Routes to correct container         │
└────────────┬────────────────────────────┘
             │
             ↓
┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│   Site DevContainer                     │
│   - Receives plain HTTP on port 80      │
│   - PHP application responds            │
└─────────────────────────────────────────┘

Caddyfile Location

Caddy configuration is stored in the damp_caddy_config volume:

/config/caddy/Caddyfile

DAMP automatically manages this file - manual edits are not necessary.

Production Parity

Developing with HTTPS locally matches production environments, catching SSL-related bugs early!