diff --git a/Dockerfile b/Dockerfile
index 4afe7b6..b794569 100644
--- a/Dockerfile
+++ b/Dockerfile
@@ -1,11 +1,9 @@
-FROM docker.io/php:8.4-fpm-alpine
+FROM docker.io/alpine:3.21
 
-WORKDIR /var/www
-
-# We use the community repository to get pre-compiled PHP 8.4 extensions
-# This skips the source-code extraction that is causing your permission errors
+# Install PHP 8.4 and common extensions from Alpine community repos
 RUN apk add --no-cache \
-    php84-pecl-msgpack \
+    php84 \
+    php84-fpm \
     php84-pdo_mysql \
     php84-mbstring \
     php84-exif \
@@ -14,22 +12,27 @@ RUN apk add --no-cache \
     php84-gd \
     php84-zip \
     php84-intl \
-    icu-data-full
+    php84-curl \
+    php84-tokenizer \
+    php84-xml \
+    php84-xmlwriter \
+    php84-session \
+    curl
 
-# Symlink the extensions so PHP can find them (Alpine puts them in a different path)
-RUN ln -s /usr/lib/php84/modules/*.so /usr/local/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20240924/
+# Create a symlink so 'php' command works
+RUN ln -sf /usr/bin/php84 /usr/bin/php
 
-# Get latest Composer
+WORKDIR /var/www
+
+# Get Composer
 COPY --from=docker.io/composer:latest /usr/bin/composer /usr/bin/composer
 
-# Copy application files
+# Copy only the application files
+# The .dockerignore will prevent it from touching restricted system folders
 COPY . /var/www
 
-# Permission fix: Use a single RUN to reduce layer complexity
-RUN chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www && \
-    chmod -R 775 /var/www/storage /var/www/bootstrap/cache
-
-USER www-data
+# Laravel permission fix
+RUN chmod -R 775 /var/www/storage /var/www/bootstrap/cache
 
 EXPOSE 8000