Setting up a Drupal development environment with lighttpd in Mac OS X

2007-12-15

After upgrading to Leopard I finally got fed up with MAMP. I've been using it for development for quite a while, but found it dog slow and I never got the GUI tools to work right under 10.5. I've been using on servers and decided to give it a go on my MacBook Pro. It runs superbly.

This setup requires MacPorts which is a Linux style package management system. Everything you install through MacPorts is contained in the folder /opt and it doesn't tamper with your existing OS X installation.

Install MacPorts

Download and install . Note that MacPorts requires that Apple's package is installed.

You can verify that you're using the latest version of MacPorts by firing up the Terminal and running:

sudo port selfupdate

Note: If you don't already have a ~/.profile file, you may need to create it and add the paths for MacPorts (close and re-open your Terminal window for the changes to become active). Edit ~/.profile and insert:

export PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:$PATH

Install and configure lighttpd and PHP

We're using the CML version of lighttpd for URL rewriting so we need Lua too. Run:

sudo port install lua && sudo port install lighttpd +cml

Since it compiles the packages from source this takes a while.

Setting up lighttpd.conf

Make a copy of the config template that lighttpd comes with:

cd  /opt/local/etc/lighttpd/
sudo cp lighttpd.conf.default lighttpd.conf

Edit lighttpd.conf and enable mod_magnet and mod_fastcgi in the server.modules section.

Enable PHP with FastCGI by adding this snippet somewhere below the server.modules section:

fastcgi.server = (
    ".php" => ((
        "bin-path" => "/opt/local/bin/php-cgi",
        "socket" => "/opt/local/var/run/php5/php.socket"
    ))
)

Set the primary site directory. I like to use my Sites folder:

server.document-root        = "/Users/yourname/Sites/"

Add your first virtual host:

$HTTP["host"] == "mydrupalsite" {
  server.document-root = "/Users/yourname/Sites/mydrupalsite/"
  index-file.names = ( "index.php" )
  magnet.attract-physical-path-to = ( "/opt/local/etc/lighttpd/drupal.lua" )
}

Rewrite rules

lighttpd doesn't support Apache's esoteric mod_rewrite syntax, so the .htaccess file that Drupal ships with doesn't do us any good. Instead we'll use a Lua script to handle clean URLs.

Create the file /opt/local/etc/lighttpd/drupal.lua containg the following code:

attr = lighty.stat(lighty.env["physical.path"])
if (not attr) then
lighty.env["uri.query"] = "q=" .. string.gsub(lighty.env["request.uri"], "?", "&")
lighty.env["uri.path"] = "/index.php"
lighty.env["physical.rel-path"] = lighty.env["uri.path"]
lighty.env["physical.path"] = lighty.env["physical.doc-root"] .. lighty.env["physical.rel-path"]
end

This a slightly updated version of . The original version couldn't pass on GET variables appended to the clean URL (e.g. for exposed Views filters where the URL ends up looking something like: /somepage?filter0=x&filter1=y).

Add the new hostname

We need to add the hostname to /etc/hosts:

127.0.0.1       mydrupalsite

Note: In the version I downloaded lighttpd's default log directory was set to /var/log/lighttpd, but since that is outside of /opt it isn't created. lighttpd will not start if it can't write to that directory, so I created it:

sudo mkdir /var/log/lighttpd

Make lighttpd start at boot up:

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

Start lighttpd:

sudo launchctl start org.macports.lighttpd

Troubleshooting tip: If lighttpd fails to start (for example if you have a typo in your lighttpd.conf), you can get a more verbose output by running:

sudo lighttpd -D -f /opt/local/etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf

Installing MySQL

sudo port install mysql5 +server

Install the MySQL system tables:

sudo mysql_install_db5 --user=mysql

Make it run at startup:

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

Fire it up:

sudo launchctl start org.macports.mysql5

Now you can log in and secure the initial user accounts (as described ), and create your Drupal database:

mysql5 -u root

Install PHP

PHP 5 is pre-installed in Leopard, but the Apple built version lacks GD support and we need the FastCGI version too.

sudo port install php5 +fastcgi +mysql5

Create the socket directory for php-cgi (as defined in the fastcgi.server section of lighttpd.conf above):

sudo mkdir -p /opt/local/var/run/php5

Install Drupal

Install Drupal in /Users/yourname/Sites/mydrupalsite/. Now open up your browser and go to http://mydrupalsite/. Voila!

To add another virtual server, just duplicate the $HTTP["host"] entry in lighttpd.conf and give it the new hostname and path. Don't forget to add the new hostname to /etc/hosts. Easy as pie.

Install phpMyAdmin

phpMyAdmin is nice to have.

sudo port install phpmyadmin

Edit /opt/local/etc/lighttpd.conf and add it as a virtual host (no need for the rewrite rules):

$HTTP["host"] == "phpmyadmin" {
  server.document-root = "/opt/local/www/phpmyadmin/"
}

Add the hostname to /etc/hosts:

127.0.0.1       phpmyadmin

Make a copy of the template configuration file:

sudo cp /opt/local/www/phpmyadmin/config.sample.inc.php /opt/local/www/phpmyadmin/config.inc.php

Edit /opt/local/www/phpmyadmin/config.inc.php and enter something as the $cfg['blowfish_secret'].

Restart lighttpd:

sudo launchctl stop org.macports.lighttpd
sudo launchctl start org.macports.lighttpd

Point your browser to .

Create an Apple Script for starting and stopping lighttpd and MySQL

I created a simple Apple Script that restarts lighttpd and MySQL. Fire up Script Editor and paste this in there:

do shell script "sudo launchctl stop org.macports.lighttpd && sudo launchctl start org.macports.lighttpd && sudo launchctl stop org.macports.mysql5 && sudo launchctl start org.macports.mysql5" with administrator privileges

Save it as an application and add it to your dock. Now you can restart the server without having to do any typing in the Terminal.

Henrik Sjökvist