Add self-signed ssl to apache and reverse proxy container dynamically/programmatically

Question

I am trying to integrate ssl certificates with wildcard by implementing mkcert, because this is aimed at a local development environment (host OS windows 11) and I would like to use local urls.

initially with docker-composer I use the following yml file:

version: "3.9"

services:
  reverse-proxy:
    env_file:
      - .env
    container_name: Proxy-Server
    image: nginxproxy/nginx-proxy
    restart: always
    depends_on:
      - webserver
    volumes:
      - certs/etc/nginx/certs
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/tmp/docker.sock:ro
    ports:
      - "80:80"
      - "443:443"
    tty: true
    networks:
      - lamp-network
    environment:
      - TRUST_DOWNSTREAM_PROXY=true
      - ENABLE_WEBSOCKETS=true
    privileged: true

  webserver:
    env_file:
      - .env
    container_name: LH-2-Web-Server
    build:
      context: ./bin/php81
      args:
        VIRTUAL_HOST: lh-2.dock
    restart: always
    expose:
      - 80
      - 443
    networks:
      - lamp-network
    tty: true
    volumes:
      - ./../project/:/var/www/html:rw
      - ./../project/public:/var/www/html/public:rw
      - ./config/vhosts:/etc/apache2/sites-enabled
      - ./config/php/php.ini:/usr/local/etc/php/php.ini
      - certs:/etc/ssl/certs
      - ./log/apache2:/var/log/apache2
      - ./log/cron:/var/log/cron
    environment:
      VIRTUAL_HOST: lh-2.dock
      LH_WEB_MASTER: [email protected]
      LH_APACHE_DOCUMENT_ROOT: /var/www/html/
      LH_DOCUMENT_ROOT: public
    extra_hosts:
      - "host.docker.internal:host-gateway"
    labels:
      - "lh2.setup.description=Web Server"
      - "lh2.setup.role=webserver"

volumes:
  certs:

networks:
  lamp-network:
    name: lamp-network
    driver: bridge

To create the ssl certificates I try to do it from the webserver container in the Dockerfile file:

FROM php:8.1-apache-bullseye

ARG DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive

ARG VIRTUAL_HOST

RUN apt-get update &&  \
    apt-get upgrade -y --no-install-recommends --fix-missing

RUN apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends --fix-missing tzdata sed build-essential dialog nano apt-utils cron wget git curl zip openssl gettext-base libnss3-tools

RUN curl -JLO "https://dl.filippo.io/mkcert/latest?for=linux/amd64" && \
    chmod +x mkcert-v*-linux-amd64 && \
    cp mkcert-v*-linux-amd64 /usr/local/bin/mkcert

RUN mkcert -install

RUN mkcert \
    -cert-file /etc/ssl/certs/default.crt \
    -key-file /etc/ssl/certs/default.key \
    "${VIRTUAL_HOST}" "*.${VIRTUAL_HOST}"

RUN apt-get -y autoremove && \
    apt-get clean

RUN a2enmod rewrite 
RUN a2enmod ssl 
RUN a2enmod headers 
RUN a2enmod proxy_wstunnel

RUN service apache2 restart

my vhost for apache has this content from start:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName lh-2.dock
    ServerAlias *.lh-2.dock
    ServerAdmin [email protected]
    DocumentRoot /var/www/html/public
    <Directory /var/www/html/public>
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes ExecCGI
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
        Allow from all
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:443>
    ServerName lh-2.dock
    ServerAlias *.lh-2.dock
    SSLProtocol all -SSLv2 -SSLv3
    ServerAdmin [email protected]
    DocumentRoot /var/www/html/public
    <Directory /var/www/html/public>
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes ExecCGI
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
        Allow from all
    </Directory>
    SSLEngine on
    SSLCertificateFile /etc/ssl/certs/default.crt
    SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/ssl/certs/default.key
    ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/lh-2.dock-error.log
    CustomLog /var/log/apache2/lh-2.dock-access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

and results in the following error:

2023-10-05 16:51:10 AH00526: Syntax error on line 25 of /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/vhost.conf: 2023-10-05 16:51:10 SSLCertificateFile: file '/etc/ssl/certs/default.crt' does not exist or is empty 2023-10-05 16:51:12 AH00526: Syntax error on line 25 of /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/vhost.conf: 2023-10-05 16:51:12 SSLCertificateFile: file '/etc/ssl/certs/default.crt' does not exist or is empty

It seems that the mount point is not created when required or that the certificate is not created in the directory... I have tried to change it to a shared volume and I have verified that the certificates and key exist, but in the end the error prevails even though I use the following command:

docker-compose -f /docker/docker-compose.yaml up -d --build --force-recreate