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Setting up Apache, PHP and MySQL with HomeBrew on OSX 10.15 Catalina

Posted (Updated ) in Database, Linux, PHP

Update 22 Oct 2019: Instructions updated for OSX 10.15 Catalina

After suffering some pretty bad issues with MAMP, I decided to set everything up with homebrew instead. The result was surprisingly a much faster and (in my opinion) easier to configure setup.

As a tl;dr, we’ll be setting up Homebrew MySQL and PHP and using OSX’s built in Apache.

In this tutorial I’m using the subl command which will open a file for editing in Sublime Text. If you don’t use Sublime Text, replace subl with nano or vi or any other app you use to edit text/config files.

Homebrew Setup

Homebrew is a package manager for OSX. It makes installation of a wide variety of useful apps super easy.

Installation instructions are on the homebrew homepage but you can also just run the following:

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/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

MySQL

I lied! We’re installing MariaDB instead! At the time of writing MySQL version 8.0.11 has just changed its default authentication method to caching_sha2_password which isn’t supported in PHP. It’s a huge hassle so we’ll just use the drop-in replacement MariaDB instead.

Install and configure MariaDB.

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# Install MariaDB
brew install mariadb
# Open my.cnf config file for editing
subl /usr/local/etc/my.cnf

Add the following to the end of the file to add support for large imports:

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max_allowed_packet = 2G
innodb_file_per_table = 1

Make MySQL start when you log in:

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brew services start mariadb

The default installation comes with a passwordless root user. So secure it with:

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mysql_secure_installation

SSL

Like all developers I like working on a custom subdomain – in this case localhost.com. We need to create a self-signed wildcard SSL certificate and get Chrome accepting it.

Create a folder /Users/your_username/Sites/certs and inside it run the following:

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# Generate a temporary OpenSSL config file
cat > openssl.cnf <<-EOF
  [req]
  distinguished_name = req_distinguished_name
  x509_extensions = v3_req
  prompt = no
  [req_distinguished_name]
  CN = *.localhost.com
  [v3_req]
  keyUsage = nonRepudiation, digitalSignature, keyEncipherment
  extendedKeyUsage = serverAuth
  subjectAltName = @alt_names
  [alt_names]
  DNS.1 = *.localhost.com
  DNS.2 = localhost.com
EOF
 
# Generate the certificates
openssl req \
  -new \
  -newkey rsa:2048 \
  -sha1 \
  -days 3650 \
  -nodes \
  -x509 \
  -keyout server.key \
  -out server.crt \
  -config openssl.cnf
 
# Delete the temporary config file
rm openssl.cnf

This should have created two files – server.crt and server.key which will be used in the apache config below to get HTTPS up and running.

But first, because this certificate is self-signed, it’ll result in a This site’s security certificate is not trusted! error in Chrome. That can be fixed through adding the cert to OSX’s keychain app.

  • open /Applications/Utilities/Keychain\ Access.app (In OSX 10.15 this was only visible in Finder and not Terminal for some reason)
  • Under Keychains at the top left click System
  • Click File – Import Items and select your server.crt file
  • Now in the list find your newly added cert, double click it, expand the Trust section and set everything to Always Trust
  • These changes will only take effect after a browser restart.

Apache and PHP

OSX 10.15 Catalina comes (at the time of writing) with Apache 2.4.41.

To configure apache (with SSL):

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# Install PHP 7.3
brew install php@7.3
brew link --overwrite --force php@7.3
# Open httpd.conf for editing
subl /etc/apache2/httpd.conf
 
# Enable the PHP and SSL modules by removing the # at the start of the line
LoadModule socache_shmcb_module libexec/apache2/mod_socache_shmcb.so
LoadModule ssl_module libexec/apache2/mod_ssl.so
LoadModule php7_module /usr/local/opt/php@7.1/lib/httpd/modules/libphp7.so
# A few extras I like to have enabled
LoadModule deflate_module libexec/apache2/mod_deflate.so
LoadModule expires_module libexec/apache2/mod_expires.so
LoadModule headers_module libexec/apache2/mod_headers.so
LoadModule rewrite_module libexec/apache2/mod_rewrite.so
 
# Point the document root to a htdocs folder in your home directory and enable .htaccess
# I've removed all the comments for succinctness but feel free to leave them in
DocumentRoot "/Users/your_username/htdocs"
<Directory "/Users/your_username/htdocs">
    Options FollowSymLinks Multiviews
    MultiviewsMatch Any
 
    AllowOverride All
 
    Require all granted
</Directory>
 
# Add PHP to your default file list
<IfModule dir_module>
    DirectoryIndex index.html index.php
</IfModule>
 
# And make it work
<FilesMatch \.php


gt;

SetHandler application/x-httpd-php

</FilesMatch>


# As with content, we want to load all site definitions from a Sites folder in our

# home directory. At the bottom replace the following:

# Include /private/etc/apache2/other/*.conf

IncludeOptional /Users/your_username/Sites/*.conf


# The error and custom logs too

CustomLog “/Users/your_username/Sites/logs/apache2/access_log” common

ErrorLog “/Users/your_username/Sites/logs/apache2/error_log”


# Uncomment to load the SSL config

Include /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-ssl.conf

Now configure the default SSL options:



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# Open httpd.conf for editing
subl /etc/apache2/extra/httpd-ssl.conf
 
# Point to our same document root as before
DocumentRoot "/Users/your_username/htdocs"
 
# Update log file locations
ErrorLog "/Users/your_username/Sites/logs/apache2/error_log"
TransferLog "/Users/your_username/Sites/logs/apache2/access_log"
CustomLog "/Users/your_username/Sites/logs/apache2/ssl_request_log" \
          "%t %h %{SSL_PROTOCOL}x %{SSL_CIPHER}x \"%r\" %b"
 
# Point to the certs we created
SSLCertificateFile "/Users/your_username/Sites/certs/server.crt"
SSLCertificateKeyFile "/Users/your_username/Sites/certs/server.key"



Since this is a development machine, you’ll probably also want to enable the ever popular xdebug which luckily for us comes pre-compiled with OSX. What OSX doesn’t come with, however, is a default php.ini though it does have a sample file. We can use that:



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sudo cp /etc/php.ini.default /etc/php.ini



Then simply add extension=xdebug.so below all the extension= lines in your new /etc/php.ini file.


VirtualHosts


I like to split virtualhosts up into one for each site and store them all in /Users/your_username/Sites/ folder.


Create a file /Users/your_username/Sites/mysite.localhost.com.conf and add the following:



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<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
  ServerName mysite.localhost.com
  ServerAlias mysite.localhost.com
  DocumentRoot /Users/your_username/htdocs/mysite.com
 
  ErrorLog /Users/your_username/Sites/logs/mysite.com.error.log
  LogLevel warn
  CustomLog /Users/your_username/Sites/logs/mysite.com.access.log varnishcombined
 
  <Directory /Users/your_username/htdocs/mysite.com/>
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride All
    Require all granted
  </Directory>
</VirtualHost>
 
<IfModule ssl_module>
  <VirtualHost *:443>
    ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
    ServerName mysite.localhost.com
    ServerAlias mysite.localhost.com
    DocumentRoot /Users/your_username/htdocs/mysite.com
 
    ErrorLog /Users/your_username/Sites/logs/mysite.com.error.log
    LogLevel warn
    CustomLog /Users/your_username/Sites/logs/mysite.com.access.log varnishcombined
 
    <Directory /Users/flynsarmy/htdocs/work/qpsmedia/qpsstats/>
      Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
      AllowOverride All
      Require all granted
    </Directory>
 
    SSLEngine on
    SSLCertificateFile    /Users/your_username/Sites/certs/server.crt
    SSLCertificateKeyFile /Users/your_username/Sites/certs/server.key
 
    <FilesMatch "\.(cgi|shtml|phtml|php)$">
      SSLOptions +StdEnvVars
    </FilesMatch>
  </VirtualHost>
</IfModule>



Finally, restart apache and you should be good to go!



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sudo apachectl restart



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