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Apache, PHP, and MySQL on macOS Catalina
PREREQUISITES:
In order to follow this guide, you should have a Mac computer with the Catalina OS installed.
I was using for several years MAMP, Fywheel, as well as package managers like brew, and all work pretty well, but why not using the preinstalled Apache and PHP that is shipped in almost all macOS?
In this tutorial, I will show you how to setup/install Apache, PHP, and MySQL on macOS Catalina.
Open the Terminal app and switch to the root user so you can run the commands in this post without any permission issues:
sudo su -
Enable Apache on macOS
apachectl start
Check if works by accessing:
http://localhost
Enable PHP for Apache
First, let’s make a backup of the default Apache configuration
cd /etc/apache2/ cp httpd.conf httpd.conf.Catalina
Edit the Apache configuration
nano httpd.conf
Uncomment the following line
LoadModule php7_module libexec/apache2/libphp7.so
Restart Apache:
apachectl restart
You can verify PHP is enabled by creating a phpinfo() page in your DocumentRoot.
The default DocumentRoot for macOS Catalina is /Library/WebServer/Documents. In order to verify this, we run the command below to find out our Apache configuration.
grep DocumentRoot httpd.conf
Create the phpinfo() page in your DocumentRoot:
echo '<?php phpinfo(); ?>' > /Users/WebServer/Documents/info.php
Verify PHP by accessing http://localhost/phpinfo.php
Customizing PHP settings (php.ini)
MacOS’ PHP uses a default php.ini file based on /private/etc/php.ini.default.
To customize your PHP environment, if a php.ini file doesn’t already exist at /private/etc/php.ini, copy the default template to create a main php.ini file:
sudo cp /private/etc/php.ini.default /private/etc/php.ini
Make any changes you wish to php.ini and restart apache to reload all configuration files:
sudo apachectl restart
If you were to run phpinfo() in a PHP file from the web server, you should now see that the Loaded Configuration File property now has the value /etc/php.ini.
A very common tweak to the default PHP configuration is to allow larger file upload sizes. The post_max_size and upload_max_filesize properties are only a few megs by default. These limits can be raised as you see fit.
Many developers also tweak the max_execution_time, max_input_time, and memory_limit settings depending on their project.
Always remember to restart apache after making changes to your PHP configuration.
Install MySQL on macOS Catalina
Download and install the latest MySQL version for your macOS.
Setup
Open a new terminal and run the code below this will update the mysql path on your ~/.profile
export PATH=/usr/local/mysql/bin:$PATH
Please run mysql_secure_installation to make your MySQL secured
/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_secure_installation
Recommended setup:
Strong Password? Yes
Change the root password? Yes
Remove anonymous users? yes
Disallow root login remotely? Yes
Remove test database? Yes
Reload privileges tables now? Yes
We can set a command shortcut for mysql:
sudo ln -sfn /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql /usr/local/bin/mysql
sudo ln -sfn /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqldump /usr/local/bin/mysqldump
Now, to access mysql console, we can run below short command:
mysql -u root -p'yourpassword'
Useful mysql commands
sudo /usr/local/mysql/support-files/mysql.server start sudo /usr/local/mysql/support-files/mysql.server stop sudo /usr/local/mysql/support-files/mysql.server restart
Connect PHP and MySQL
Create symlink to ensure PHP and MySQL can communicate each other.
mkdir /var/mysql ln -s /tmp/mysql.sock /var/mysql/mysql.sock
Edited my Apache Configuration:
mkdir /var/mysql nano /etc/apache2/httpd.conf
Uncommented the following lines
LoadModule deflate_module libexec/apache2/mod_deflate.so LoadModule expires_module libexec/apache2/mod_expires.so LoadModule rewrite_module libexec/apache2/mod_rewrite.so
Virtual Hosts
Edit the Apache configuration file:
nano /etc/apache2/httpd.conf
Add the below line after this included #Include /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf
Include /private/etc/apache2/vhosts/*.conf
Create the apache2 vhosts directory.
mkdir /etc/apache2/vhosts cd /etc/apache2/vhosts
Create the default virtual host configuration file.
nano _default.conf
Add the following configuration:
<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot "/Users/nuno/Sites/"
</VirtualHost>
The default virtual host was created for when the Apache web server can’t find a virtual host, it will use this configuration. By prefixing this file with an underscore, Apache will include it first.
Now we can create our first virtual host. The example below contains the virtual host configuration for my test site.
Create the virtual host configuration file:
nano nuno-test.conf
Add the following configuration:
<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot "/Users/nuno/Sites/nuno-test/"
ServerName nuno-test.test
ErrorLog "/private/var/log/apache2/nuno-test.test-error_log"
CustomLog "/private/var/log/apache2/nuno-test.test-access_log" common
<Directory "/Users/nuno/Sites/nuno-test/">
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>
This VirtualHost configuration allows me to access my site from http://nuno-test.test for local development.
The final step is to restart Apache:
apachectl restart
Test our apache configuration/strong>
apachectl configtest
Start, Stop, Restart and test Apache server config
I know it is a little bit daunting but I promise that we’ll never come back to this nasty lengthy configuration file again. Four simple commands are everything that we need to remember from now on. Start, stop, restart and configuration test.
sudo apachectl start sudo apachectl stop sudo apachectl restart sudo apachectl configtest
Mapping our vhosts on macOS hosts file
nano /etc/hosts
Add your virtual host to the bottom of the file. It should match the value you used for the ServerName configuration.
127.0.0.1 nuno-test.test
Flush macOS DNS cache:
dscacheutil -flushcache
Permissions
You may receive 403 Forbidden when you visit your local site. This is likely a permissions issue. Simply put, the Apache user (_www) group (_www) needs to have access to read, and sometimes write, to your web directory.
sudo chown -R _www:_www /Users/nuno/Sites/nuno-test/*
Conclusion
By using the macOS preinstalled Apache and PHP we can avoid installing extra software on our macOS which sometimes could lead us to conflicts/errors/miss configuration on our Mac Operating system.
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