1. Install MacPorts

Follow the instructions here: http://www.macports.org/install.php.

2. Install apache2

sudo port install apache2

Note that the macports instructions suggest installing the launchctl script now, but we’ll do that after mysql and php are installed.

3. Install and configure MySQL

If you want 5.0.x, use mysql5-server. If you need 5.1.x, install mysql5-server-devel (at least as of August 2009).

sudo port install mysql5-server

As the macports instructions state,

In order to setup the database, you might want to run sudo -u mysql mysql_install_db5 if this is a new install.

It’s never a bad idea to set the root password, and as the document suggests, run:

/opt/local/lib/mysql5/bin/mysqladmin -u root password 'new-password'

You also want to install a database configuration file — there are a bunch of templates in /opt/local/share/mysql5/mysql/, but for development, my-small.cnf should suffice:

sudo cp /opt/local/share/mysql5/mysql/my-small.cnf /opt/local/etc/mysql5/my.cnf

Once the config is in place, spin up mysql:

sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.macports.mysql5.plist

Check that mysql is up and running by connecting with the mysql client:

mysql -h localhost -u root -p

4. Fix your PATH

Note that the mysql binaries in /opt/local/bin all have a “5″ suffix, but /opt/local/lib/mysql5/bin has “normal” named binaries, so you probably want that in your PATH too. The apachectl in /usr/bin will spin up the mac os x version of apache (that we’re avoiding), and that lives in /opt/local/apache2/bin. So in your .bashrc (or .profile or whatever):

export PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:/opt/local/lib/mysql5/bin:/opt/local/apache2/bin:$PATH

5. Install PHP5

sudo port install php5 +pear +apache2 +fastcgi +mysql5

Note that php5 has a lot of variants. If you think you want other goodness, run port variants php5 and cook up your own set of options.

Again, as the macports instructions state,

copy /opt/local/etc/php5/php.ini-development (if this is a development server) or /opt/local/etc/php5/php.ini-production (if this is a production server) to /opt/local/etc/php5/php.ini and then make changes.

6. Install the PHP-MySQL driver:

sudo port install php5-mysql +mysql5

7. Configure apache2

The mod_php.conf from the php5 package is put into a directory that the apache2 configuration doesn’t read by default — so you need to add this line to the end of /opt/local/apache2/conf/httpd.conf:

Include conf/extras-conf/*

Hopefully this will be considered a packaging bug, and will be fixed at some point.

8. Run apache2

sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.macports.apache2.plist

Note that the logs, by default, are in /opt/local/apache2/logs.

If you change the PHP or Apache configuration files, run

sudo /opt/local/apache2/bin/apachectl restart

and watch the logs for errors.

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