Install Apache/PHP/MySQL on Snow Leopard

If you design & develop websites and use a mac you’ll most definitely need to test code locally. A large percentage of today’s open source content management systems are built on Apache, PHP, MySQL and there are two common ways to make those three things work in Os X.

The first method is by using MAMP, which a lot of people do but most of the code ninjas I know all insist on running the versions of Apache and PHP that come with Os X and installing MySQL by hand. Here’s how to do it:

1. Apache
Start Apache

sudo apachectl start

Check to see if it’s working: http://localhost/

2. PHP

In /etc/apache2/httpd.conf, uncomment this line:

LoadModule php5_module libexec/apache2/libphp5.so

Restart Apache

sudo apachectl restart

Fix a warning appearing in phpinfo()
Create /etc/php.ini and make it writable

cd /etc
sudo cp php.ini.default php.ini
sudo chmod 666 php.ini


In php.ini, find this line:

;date.timezone =

Uncomment it and insert your time zone (http://php.net/manual/en/timezones.php)

date.timezone =America/Vancouver

Restart Apache

sudo apachectl restart

3. MySQL

Download the MySQL package for Mac OS X.5 (32 or 64 bits depending on your machine)

Install everything in the package in this order: mysql, the startup item, the preference pane.

Start MySQL in the preference pane.

Test it’s working:

/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql

Fix mysql.sock location in php.ini
In /etc/php.ini, replace the three occurences of /var/mysql/mysql.sock by /tmp/mysql.sock

pdo_mysql.default_socket=/tmp/mysql.sock
mysql.default_socket = /tmp/mysql.sock
mysqli.default_socket = /tmp/mysql.sock


Restart Apache

sudo apachectl restart

Activate PHP short tags

In /etc/php.ini, under Language Options, change

short_open_tag = On

Restart Apache

sudo apachectl restart