Make your OSX (snow)Lion a dream of a php development envrionment.

I was being driven crazy everytime i should setup an local virtual host for a test site, all the manual tasks to perform (creation of the vhost file, restart apache ect.). Therefore i started to investiage how to get rid of that, and the result is, that i only have to create the directory where the test site stays.

No need for restarting your webserver

A setup with a custom local dns handler, nginx as the webserver, which is custom configured to handle my needs.

This will be installed and configurered.

• Homebrew + Homebrew alternatives
• git
• Iterm2
• zsh + oh-my-zsh
• Macvim
• named
• nginx
• Configure nginx for wildcard local domains.
• php 5.3.8
• mariaDB
• Real life example
• Another site
• Linux note
• Homebrew

Homebrew - as told on the website, The missing package manager for OSX, it’s the easiest and most flexisble way to install various tools Apple didn’t include with OSX. The HomebrewAlt is an addon to the normal homebrew, with a lot of new apps to install. We’re using it to get php upgraded to 5.3.8.

There are a few requirements to be able to install Homebrew, and it’s:

• OSX 10.5+ (which should be fully updated).
• Xcode 4.x

It’s pretty simple to install Homebrew, it’s done with this oneliner.

$ /usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/gist/323731)"


If you want to see the script.

Homebrew it now installed in /usr/local and it’s path is writeable by the user who have installed it, so you can acutally install with homebrew without sudo’ing.

Download and install Homebrew-alt into /usr/local/LibraryAlt

$ git clone https://github.com/adamv/homebrew-alt.git /usr/local/LibraryAlt


Add /usr/local/bin and /usr/local/sbin to your path.

$ vim ~/.zshrc


Paste the following into the very buttom of the file and [esc]:wq

export PATH=$(brew --prefix)/bin:$(brew --prefix)/sbin:$PATH;


Git

Git is a free & open source, distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency.

It’s simply installed with

$ brew install git


And you’re good to go.

Iterm2

iTerm2 is a replacement for Terminal. iTerm2 has a rich collection of features.

Go to www.iterm2.com and download and install the app.

ZSH & Oh-my-zsh

The ZSH is a shell designed for interactive use, although it is also a powerful scripting language, it will be installed along with [oh-my-zsh)[https://github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh] which is a framework for managing your ZSH configuration, theres a lot of plugins, which adds tab-completion for ex, git homebrew, and a lot of terminal themes to spice it all up with.

First we need to install wget and a never version of zsh, to download and execute the oh-my-zsg install script, it’s so easy done with homebrew.

$ brew install wget zsh


Fire this command to install oh-my-zsh

$ wget --no-check-certificate https://github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh/raw/master/tools/install.sh -O - | sh


MacVim

To get Macvim installed we again simply use Homebrew, we add a little something to homebrew, to learn a new subcommand.

We want to search the homebrew library to see if MacVim is available to install.

$ brew search macvim


And we’re getting:

$ brew search macvim
macvim


Which means that it’s available, and ready for installation

$ brew install macvim


You can now start MacVim from your terminal with

$ mvim FILE


Named

Named is a domain name daemon, which can act as a local dns server.

We need to set up named (bind), to handle wildcard DNS for our development TLF (top level domain) and using OpenDNS as secondary DNS lookup for all other requests.

Everything is set up in your terminal as root user.

$ sudo -i


To be sure, backup the original configuration

$ cp /etc/named.conf /etc/named.conf.orig


Create a keyfile which is read by named on startup.

$ rndc-confgen -a


Edit the named.conf file

$ vim /etc/named.conf


Somewhere inside options {} block, add OpenDNS as DNS forwarder.

forwarders {
208.67.222.222 // OpenDNS primary
208.67.220.220 // OpenDNS secondary
}


Add the following before the “0.0.127.in-addr.arpa” IN { zone

zone "dev" IN {
type master;
file "dev.zone";
};


Save your named.conf file [esc]:wq

Now we need to create the dev.zone file, so bind (named) could read the dns configuration for that tld.

$ vim /var/named/dev.zone


And paste this block into that file.

dev. 7200 IN SOA dev. root.dev. (
2008031801 ; Serial
15 ; Refresh every 15 minutes
3600 ; Retry every hour
3000000 ; Expire after a month+
86400 ) ; Minimum ttl of 1 day
IN NS dev.
IN MX 10 dev.

IN A 127.0.0.1
*.dev. IN A 127.0.0.1

Save the file, agagin, with [esc]:wq

Run the following commands to ensure configuration is ok

$ named-checkconf /etc/named.conf


And

$ named-checkzone dev /var/named/dev.zone


Now set your computer dns to use localhost as primary dns handler, in System Preferences -> Network for both Wireless and Ethernet connections by clicking Advanced and selecting the DNS tab, and add 127.0.0.1.

Set Bind (named) to load when computer starts, and load it now.

$ launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.isc.named.plist


Let’s flush the internal DNS cache first,

$ sudo dscacheutil -flushcache


Lets test that everything is working as planned.

$ dig test.dev


Should return something like

$ dig test.dev

; <<>> DiG 9.7.3-P3 <<>> test.dev
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 4384
;; flags: qr aa rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;test.dev. IN A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
test.dev. 7200 IN A 127.0.0.1

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
dev. 7200 IN NS dev.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
dev. 7200 IN A 127.0.0.1

;; Query time: 2 msec
;; SERVER: 127.0.0.1#53(127.0.0.1)
;; WHEN: Sun Dec 18 10:51:34 2011
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 72

And we can see it’s resolved as a local domain. All ok.

And a ping test, should return

$ ping test.dev

PING test.dev (127.0.0.1): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.041 ms
64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.110 ms

Nginx

Nginx is an awesome alternative to Apache Web Server, more lightweight, very customizable, and thats for good use with this setup.

This Nginx vhost configuration is mostly for Drupal installations, but works with other frameworks and homemade stuff, almost out-of-the-box, but changes to the vhost.conf file, depending on configration in your .htaccess file used in Apache, can appear.

First of all we need to ensure that Apache wont be started when booting.

$ sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.apache.httpd.plist


Now we need nginx to be installed via Homebrew.

$ brew install nginx


When nginx is compiled, we need to backup the original nginx.conf file.

$ cp /usr/local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf /usr/local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf.orig


Open and configure your nginx.conf file to your needs.

$ vim /usr/local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf


Look for user in the file, and make it look like

user YOUR_NAME staff;


Save the file [esc]:wq

Create the nginx log directory, to make it show up in Console.app

$ sudo mkdir /var/log/nginx


Configure nginx for wildcard local domains.

Edit your nginx.conf

$ vim /usr/local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf


And add the following line in the http {} section just before the closing }

include /usr/local/etc/nginx/vhosts.conf


Save and exit the file [esc]:wq

Create the vhosts.conf file, in this example it’s confiugred for drupal development, but will work for the most.

$ vim /usr/local/etc/nginx/vhosts.conf


And paste the following into the file.

server {
listen 80 default;
server_name _;
index index.php;

if ($host ~* "^(.+)+.dev$") {
set $site $1;
}

root /Users/[USERNAME]/www/$site;

access_log /var/log/nginx/$host.access.log combined;
error_log /var/log/nginx/$host.error.log crit;

add_header X-Frame-Options SAMEORIGIN;

location = /favicon.ico {
log_not_found off;
access_log off;
}

location /robots.txt {
allow all;
log_not_found off;
access_log off;
}

location = /backup {
deny all;
}

location ~ \..*/.*\.php$ {
return 403;
}

location / {
try_files $uri $uri/ @rewrite;
}

location @rewrite {
rewrite ^/(.*)$ /index.php?q=$1;
}

location ~ \.php$ {
fastcgi_read_timeout 600;
fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
include fastcgi_params;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
}

# Fighting with ImageCache? This little gem is amazing.
location ~ ^/sites/.*/files/styles/ {
try_files $uri $uri/ @rewrite;
}
}

Create a www folder in your homedir

$ mkdir ~/www


Restart your nginx

$ sudo nginx -s reload


And now you should be able to create new local sites without configurering and restarting nginx everytime.

PHP 5.3.8

The version of PHP in OSX Lion is upgraded to 5.3.6, but we will install PHP 5.3.8 with Homebrew, and with that it would be upgradeable, when new and awesome releases appear.

Now for the PHP 5.3.6 -> 5.3.8 upgrade. We will start by backing up the originally installed php.

$ sudo mv /usr/bin/php /usr/bin/php.orig


Run homebrew installer with the php brew file from the alternative brew directory.

$ brew install /usr/local/LibraryAlt/duplicates/php.rb --with-mysql --with-fpm


When php is compiled and ready, create your own php-fpm.conf file.

$ cp /usr/local/Cellar/php/5.3.8/etc/php-fpm.conf.default /usr/local/Cellar/php/5.3.8/etc/php-fpm.conf


Create symbolic link for it in /usr/local/etc/

$ sudo ln -s /usr/local/Cellar/php/5.3.8/etc/php-fpm.conf /usr/local/etc/php-fpm.conf


Edit the file

$ vim /usr/local/etc/php-fpm.conf


Add the following line below ;pid = run/php-fpm.pid

pid = /usr/local/var/run/php-fpm.pid


Update the user and group section as follows

user = _www
group = _www


Remove the ; from the start of the following lines then save using Ctrl+X then Y

pm.start_servers = 3
pm.min_spare_servers = 3
pm.max_spare_servers = 5
pm.max_requests = 500


Create directory for php-fpm log

$ mkdir /usr/local/Cellar/php/5.3.8/var/log/


and the file

$ touch /usr/local/Cellar/php/5.3.8/var/log/php-fpm.log


Make our log file visible in Console app

$ sudo ln -s /usr/local/Cellar/php/5.3.8/var/log/php-fpm.log /var/log/nginx/php-fpm.log


Set your timezone in php.ini

$ vim /usr/local/etc/php.ini


Look for ;date.timezone, and add following below

date.timezone = Europe/Copenhagen


And update the memory_limit

memory_limit = 256M


Save the file [esc]:wq

MariaDB

MariaDB is an alternative to MySQL, it’s created and maintained by some original authors of MySQL.

Install MariaDB from terminal and with homebrew

$ brew install mariadb


After installation is done, unset TMPDIR

$ unset TPMDIR


Then install database

$ mysql_install_db


Make all of the services (nginx, php-fpm and MariaDB run on boot)

Start iterm2 and become root.

$ sudo -i


Download the LaunchDaemon to load nginx on boot

$ curl http://realityloop.com/sites/realityloop.com/files/uploads/nginx.plist_.txt > /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.homebrew.nginx.plist


Download LaunchDaemon for php-fpm

$ curl http://realityloop.com/sites/realityloop.com/files/uploads/php-fpm.plist_.txt > /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.homebrew.php-fpm.plist


Copy the LaunchDaemon to load MariaDB on boot into place

$ cp /usr/local/Cellar/mariadb/5.2.8/com.mysql.mysqld.plist /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.mysql.mysqld.plist


Now it’s time to reboot your computer, to make sure everything is working.

After reboot, open iterm and run this command.

$ sudo /usr/local/Cellar/mariadb/5.2.8/bin/mysql_secure_installation


Answer the prompts as follows, replace [password] with a password of your own chosing

Enter current password for root (enter for none): [Enter]
Set root password? [Y/n] y
New password: [password]
Re-enter new password: [password]
Remove anonymous users? [Y/n] y
Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n] y
Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n] y
Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n] y


Real life example

Now for an example by installing a drupal site with a few tools.

Download drush which is a command line tool for Drupal, this will install drush_make as well.

$ brew install drush


Go to ~/www

$ cd ~/www


And download Drupal core.

$ drush dl drupal --drupal-project-rename=drupal7


Open your favorite browser and go to

http://drupal7.dev


You should see the installation page of Drupal. Instead we could install drupal with a oneliner.

$ cd ~/www/drupal7


And we use drush to install with default settings.

$ drush site-install --db-url=mysql://root:PASSWORD@localhost/drupal7


And if you visit

http://drupal7.dev


you will see a default installed drupal site, and you will be able to login with user: admin, pass: admin.

Another site

We’ll just try another site

$ cd ~/www/


Install a drupal 6.x site

$ drush dl drupal-6.x --drupal-project-rename=drupal6


And again use drush site-install to install the site.

$ drush site-install --db-url=mysql://root:PASSWORD@localhost/drupal6


And visit

http://drupal6.dev


You will see an installed drupal 6 site.

And everything without reloading Nginx - MAGIC

Linux note

As a little note, it would quite easy install on a unix based platform as well, skip the homebrew parts and install through your preferred install util (apt-get or whatever).

The paths would in most cases deviate a bit from the ones on OSX.

I just tested it on a Ubuntu 10.04, and took me around 10 mins to install from this guide.