I first had to download and install the inconv library, and the mcrypt library, and tell the PHP configure script about them. Furthermore I had to point the configure script at my existing mySQL installation (an easy osx package double clickey type installation) and apache installation. Only after carefully balancing the conflicting forces of each of these configure options would the make script run correctly. Notably, libmycrypt is the part of mcrypt that PHP needs. The actual mcrypt program has dependencies on some hashing algorithms that I had trouble finding, but is not actually needed. Both of these projects are available here.

to test my php installation, I wrote a short PHP file that invoked phpinfo command, which brings up a screen detailing the configuration options set for PHP.

Once php was installed I restarted apache and tested.

Apache 2 comes with OSX by default. It can be activated using the system settings sharing panel. However, Apple customises this distribution of Apache to do one thing very well: share the sites folder on one’s computer. In order to get around this, and to avoid any potential issues with system updates overwriting server settings, I began from scratch with a fresh tarball, directly from the Apache people.

I learned the tar command, and used it to unzip the tarball. The modifiers x,v,z, and f are applied. X sets the tar operation to extraction; tar can also compress archives, inspect them, and so on.. V asks tar to operate in verbose mode, f uses the file ‘archive’ to unpack files and folders, rather than the compilation dependent source location, and z tells tar to use the gzip library to decompress tarballs.

Once the installation files are unzipped, I navigated into their directory, and ran the configure script included. This creates installation files optimised for the setup of my particular computer.

I ran the make script generated to build an installation for the laptop. Lastly, I sudo ran the make install script, to install the server with administrative privileges.

The final step is to start the server. Inside the /usr/local/apache2 folder where apache’s default install puts itself, there is a bin folder, and therein a script called apachectl. This script handles starting, stopping, and restarting the apache server, and must be run as an administrator.

Using the VI text editor, I set the home directory for apache, in apache’s httpd.conf file. I then create a short html document for testing purposes and placed it in this home directory. To test that the server is working, I pointed a browser at http://localhost.

After some careful checking of settings, the html file loaded. Time to get PHP running!

The process began with my aging but virginal Macbook Pro, and opening many terminal windows. My early computer experiences were with text-based operating systems, so this was something I was somewhat comfortable with. However, Unix commands are pretty new to me, so almost everything I have learned has been a transfer of old skills into a new environment. I used this helpful reference extensively. I know it says Linux at the top. It works for MacOS too.

My task list included setting up and learning to use the following:

• Apache 2 web http server
• PHP 5
• iconv library for PHP
• mcrypt library for PHP
• MySQL
• phpMyAdmin browser based database management software
• Subversion version control client