ContainerSetup

Payroll Engine Container Setup

This document describes how to set up and run the Payroll Engine stack using Docker.

Prerequisites

• Docker
• Docker Compose

Getting Started

1. Repository Clone

All of the repositories listed below should be cloned into the same directory.

• Backend
• WebApp
• PayrollEngine

2. Environment Configuration

The application uses a .env file to manage the database password. This file must be created in the same directory as the docker-compose.yml file (PayrollEngine/).

Create a file named .env with the following content:

# PayrollEngine Docker Stack Configuration
DB_PASSWORD=PayrollStrongPass789

Important Password Requirements:

• Use alphanumeric characters only (letters and numbers)
• Avoid special characters like !, @, #, $, etc.
• Special characters can cause authentication failures that appear as misleading "sqlcmd not found" errors
• Example of good password: PayrollStrongPass789
• Example of problematic password: PayrollStrongPass789! (contains !)

3. Build and Run the Stack

To build and start all the services, run the following command from the PayrollEngine/ directory:

docker-compose up --build

This command will:

• Build the Docker images for the backend-api, webapp, and db-init services.
• Start all the services in the correct order.
• Initialize the database.

4. Accessing the Applications

Once the stack is running, you can access the following services:

• PayrollEngine WebApp: http://localhost:8081
• PayrollEngine Backend API: http://localhost:5001 (HTTP) or https://localhost:5002 (HTTPS)
• SQL Server Database: Connect using a client on localhost:1433 with the sa user and the password you defined in the .env file.
• Verification: : Test the SQL Server connection:

docker exec payroll-db /opt/mssql-tools18/bin/sqlcmd -S localhost -U sa -P "YourPassword" -C -Q "SELECT @@VERSION"

5. Stopping the Stack

To stop the services, press Ctrl+C in the terminal where docker-compose up is running.

To stop and remove the containers, run:

docker-compose down

To remove the database volume as well, run:

docker-compose down -v

Next steps

• Basic Payroll example
• Resources with documents, blogs, tests and examples