- Rolands Atvars -

I just had to set up my usual web development stack on my new computer (MacBook Air – not that it mattersm but hey – it’s a keyword). Since it came with Lion pre-installed I had to learn how to do it in the best possible way. Usually I just install XAMPP because it comes with everything built in, but since Mac comes with Apache and PHP pre-installed I though that it doesn’t really make sense this time.

After reading some blog articles about how to do this I understood that I don’t really like any of their suggested ways of doing that. They just were messy in my opinion and would take more time than I would want to spend. So – without further welcoming text – here is my version of how to install/set-up Apache, PHP and MySQL on Mac OS Lion.

1. Installing MySQL via Homebrew

I use homebrew. Mostly because I’m lazy and I don’t like downloading sources from internet and then spending time compiling them. That’s why it made the most sense to install MySQL via homebrew. You can learn about homebrew by clicking on this link.

1.1 Installing homebrew

Everything should be explained here: https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew/wiki/installation

1.2 Installing MySQL

Just run these commands once homebrew is installed.

brew install mysql
unset TMPDIR
mysql_install_db --verbose --user=`whoami` --basedir="$(brew --prefix mysql)" --datadir=/usr/local/var/mysql --tmpdir=/tmp

The last two commands are necessary to make MySQL run from not-root user.

1.3 Running MySQL

Running MySQL is easy!

mysql.server start

Stopping it, if anything, is even more easy

mysql.server stop

1.4 Helping PHP finding MySQL

PHP will look for MySQL socket in a specific location. Once you’ve started MySQL server run these commands to help PHP find it:

sudo mkdir /var/mysql
sudo ln -s /tmp/mysql.sock /var/mysql/mysql.sock

It will just symlink the socket into PHP searched place.

2. Setting up Apache

MAC OS Lion already comes with Apache to make the Web sharing work. Sadly the default DocumentRoot is “/Library/WebServer/Documents” which I really don’t like. I prefer my DocumentRoot to live in “~/Sites”. If you don’t require this then you can skip the next step, because I shall explain how to change the DocumentRoot.

2.1 Changing DocumentRoot to “~/Sites” (or anything that you like)

You will need to edit the httpd.conf file. It is located in “/etc/apache2/httpd.conf”. By default it will only have read permissions so you will have to change that:

sudo chmod u+w /etc/apache2/httpd.conf

Now edit the file in your favourite editor (I used VIM):

sudo vi /etc/apache2/httpd.conf

Find a line that says (around line 238):

DocumentRoot "/Library/WebServer/Documents"

And change the path in the quotes to the path where you want your DocumentRoot to be. In my case:

DocumentRoot "/Users/rolandsatvars/Sites"

Then search for line (around line 266):

<Directory "/Library/WebServer/Documents">

And change the path to the same path what you entered before:

<Directory "/Users/rolandsatvars/Sites">

Now save the file and you’re done – DocumentRoot should be changed!

2.2 Making .htaccess files work

By default apache settings won’t allow you to use .htaccess files, but no worries – we will change that in a bit.

We will need to edit two files now. First one is the httpd.conf again which is located in “/etc/apache2/httpd.conf”. If you didn’t do the previous step then you’ll need to make this file writable. If you did the previous step, then you don’t need to do this as you’ve already done it.

sudo chmod u+w /etc/apache2/httpd.conf

Now open the file in your favourite editor again (I used VIM):

sudo vi /etc/apache2/httpd.conf

Then search for a line:

<Directory "/Library/WebServer/Documents">

or:

<Directory "{YOUR_DOCUMENT_ROOT_PATH}">

depending whether you changed your DocumentRoot or not. It should be around line 266. Then in the <Directory> block find where it says:

AllowOverride None

and change it to:

AllowOverride All

When you’ve done that just save the file and close it. Now we need to move on to the next file which should live in “/etc/apache2/users/{YOUR_USER_NAME}.conf” where {YOUR_USER_NAME} is your user name. Open that file in your editor again:

sudo vi /etc/apache2/users/rolandsatvars.conf

And change:

AllowOverride None

to:

AllowOverride All

And also you will want to change this line if you want to use mod_rewrite:

Options Indexes MultiViews

to:

Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks

Now save the file and close it. Success!!! Apache should be set up – we only have one more step and then we’re finished configuring things!

3. Enable PHP in Apache

Now we have to make Apache understand what PHP is – by default it won’t know that because required module isn’t loaded. We have to go to our, already known, file httpd.conf in “/etc/apache2/httpd.conf”. Open it:

sudo vi /etc/apache2/httpd.conf

and search for ‘php5_module‘ (it should be around line 111) and you should see line like this:

#LoadModule php5_module libexec/apache2/libphp5.so

Just remove the hash so that line becomes like this:

LoadModule php5_module libexec/apache2/libphp5.so

Now save and close the file again. We can remove write permissions for this file now:

sudo chmod u-w /etc/apache2/httpd.conf

Awesome – we’ve done all the things we needed to do.

4. Starting Apache

To start Apache just go to “System Preferences -> Sharing” and click on “Web Sharing” (if it’s already clicked then un-check it and check it again to restart the server).

That’s it. You should now be able to access your webserver at http://localhost (or your IP address).

Hopefully this will work for you – it did for me. Do ask me any questions if you stumble upon any problems.