MySQL on Snow Leopard

PHP

In /etc/apache2/httpd.conf, uncomment this line:

LoadModule php5_module        libexec/apache2/libphp5.so

Restart Apache

sudo apachectl restart

Fix a warning appearing in phpinfo()

Create /etc/php.ini and make it writable

cd /etc
sudo cp php.ini.default php.ini
sudo chmod 666 php.ini

In php.ini, find this line:

;date.timezone =

Uncomment it and insert your time zone (http://php.net/manual/en/timezones.php)

date.timezone =America/Vancouver

Restart Apache

sudo apachectl restart

MySQL

Download the MySQL package for Mac OS X.5 (32 or 64 bits depending on your machine)
Install everything in the package in this order: mysql, the startup item, the preference pane.
Start MySQL in the preference pane.
Test it's working:

/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql

Fix mysql.sock location in php.ini

In /etc/php.ini, replace the three occurences of /var/mysql/mysql.sock by /tmp/mysql.sock

pdo_mysql.default_socket=/tmp/mysql.sock
mysql.default_socket = /tmp/mysql.sock
mysqli.default_socket = /tmp/mysql.sock

Restart Apache

sudo apachectl restart

Extra

Activate PHP short tags

In /etc/php.ini, under Language Options, change

short_open_tag = Off

short_open_tag = On

Restart Apache

sudo apachectl restart

Feedback

Works great! Thanks.

fieg
September 21, 2009
#1

Thank you very much!

Dae
September 21, 2009
#2

Very simple, worked perfectly, thanks! One point, you can restart apache with just one command: sudo apachectl restart

Nick
September 22, 2009
#3

Thank you Nick, that's fixed :)

Jérôme Jaglale
September 22, 2009
#4

Thank you very much! Great tutorial.

Vik
September 30, 2009
#5

Awesome! Thanks for this extremely clear tutorial.

Boone
September 30, 2009
#6

Fantastic job! Easiest install tutorial seen yet, perfectly clear and concise!

zb
October 5, 2009
#7

Nice. Thanks!

Chris
October 7, 2009
#8

This is excellent! Thank you.

Tricia
October 10, 2009
#9

This is not an install! These are instructions to get the compiled and installed version on Snow Leopard started and working with PHP and MySQL. What's the difference you ask? Too much to explain here. These instructions only work on a fresh install of Snow Leopard.

ricbax
October 13, 2009
#10

Yes ricbax, a more accurate title would be "Start Apache, activate PHP and install MySQL on Snow Leopard" My apologies :)

Jérôme Jaglale
October 13, 2009
#11

Very nice. Do you have any pointers about how to get phpmyadmin working for those of us who like a graphical mysql database manager? Thanks, -Luc

Luc
October 13, 2009
#12

Good Good Good Good Good Good !!! thx

Charles
October 16, 2009
#13

Thanks! This was very helpful.

Jonah
October 19, 2009
#14

Thanks, Works great!

Johan
October 20, 2009
#15

When trying to enable the mysql prefpane I get a message that System Preferences has to restart – this because the MySQL.prefPane is a 32-bit app. Found an alternative version of the app for Snow Leopard here that solved the issue: http://www.swoon.net/site/software.html

Johan
October 20, 2009
#16

This is NOT INSTALLING ! This is ENABLING... Thanks for the misleading title.

Grb0
October 23, 2009
#17

Perfect! It's the first time that I can end with sucess. So, how to I creat an url like: marciotoledo.local/ and this open and website on folder? Thanks.

Marcio Toledo (mntoledo@gmail.com)
October 23, 2009
#18

Trying to open httpd.conf file to uncomment the php line and having trouble as it is a root file? This tutorial may help.. http://www.anujgakhar.com/2009/01/19/how-to-edit-httpdconf-on-macos/

Teej
October 24, 2009
#19

Great! Worked like a dream!

Samuel
November 5, 2009
#20

Thanks!!...i was having problems installing mysql. all got resolved

Konix
November 5, 2009
#21

thanks for being so informative! helps a lot.. also the way it's written.. So pleasant to follow! Big thanks!

Ed
November 7, 2009
#22

perfect. Thanks.

November 9, 2009
#23

Worked perfectly. Thanks

David
November 11, 2009
#24

straight to the point, really good

decarola
November 15, 2009
#25

Thanks a lot

Vasily
November 15, 2009
#26

Simple steps. Great job. Thanks a lot

Saud
November 17, 2009
#27

thanks a gig!

otsy
November 18, 2009
#28

This worked great, until I enabled short tags in my ini and then the date.timezone broke itself. anyone else having this issue?

morgan
November 20, 2009
#29

I also recommend enabling short tags; on Snow Leopard, they're off by default. I was scratching my head for nearly an hour trying to get an old script to run, but it was short tags.

Ted
December 2, 2009
#30

You are a master!!!! Thanks!!!

Alex
December 6, 2009
#31

Very well written and concise. Much appreciated :]

Jeff
December 7, 2009
#32

God bless You! Grazie mille.

Francesco
December 14, 2009
#33

Fantastic, simple guide. Seconding PHPMyAdmin help!!

Thanks
December 14, 2009
#34

My thanks as well.

Guy
December 16, 2009
#35

Great Tutorial. I transferred my PowerBook G4 account to a new MacBook Pro with the Apple Migration Assistant application in the Applications>Utlities folder (and of course a firewire cable, ethernet works too). All the files including the MySQL DB transferred without me doing anything except this tutorial. My MySQl folder from my old PowerBook G4 was called "mysql-5.0.37-osx10.4-powerpc". In the /usr/local/mysql-5.0.37-osx10.4-powerpc are all my Db's with the usernames and paswords. There was really nothing else but this tutorial to get me converted over. Dang this is a life saver tutorial!!!!

Long Time PHP MySQL user - Matt
December 19, 2009
#36

Finally a simply & straight forward guide that works. Thanks.

e
December 24, 2009
#37

It's great to be able to search the web and find such clear (and correct) instructions. Thank you!

Beth
December 26, 2009
#38

I love you! :d

djalmaaraujo
December 28, 2009
#39

perfect

romeoracz
December 28, 2009
#40

Thank you, this was exactly what I was looking for!

samspencer.com
December 31, 2009
#41

Perfect !! Thank you !

jbuchanan7
January 4, 2010
#42

Easy tutorial! Thanks! Plz add a note to change short_open_tag to On if php doesn't seem to work. I took me hours to solve that issue...

Peter Parker
January 6, 2010
#43

Wow, that worked a charm! Thanks for your clear and concise tutorial!

Paul
January 6, 2010
#44

You are wonderful!! I can't thank you enough for providing this clear, concise tutorial. Thank you, thank you.

Jane
January 20, 2010
#45

Thanks! All working nicely!

Gunther
January 27, 2010
#46

VERY Much appreciated - worked perfectly - thank you!

Jono
January 27, 2010
#47

Ditto! Gracias!

Julia
January 28, 2010
#48

Jerome, great stuff - could you please add two things for others like me, just to save them 10mins I spent fixing up afterwards?

First - it's worth putting both php.ini edits in the same block, or repeat the chmod lines etc?

Second - for those using ~/Sites/ instead of the root /Library/WebServer/Documents/ it would be worth adding the fix I found elsewhere on the web -for /etc/apache2/users/(username).conf for FollowSymlinks and Allow All?

My wordpress/php running nicely now thanks in no small part to you! Cheers.

Andrew Walker
January 30, 2010
#49

This was a great tutorial. Restores my faith in humankind!

Tommy
January 31, 2010
#50

Thank you so much for this concise and powerful article! It simplifies things for those of us who kinda know what we need to do, but don't remember the commands. I'm officially bookmarking this one!

Tyler Bird
February 8, 2010
#51

Superb! Just what is needed, with no fluff. Thank you!

Chuck McKinnon
February 10, 2010
#52

Hi,great guide. Ok I know I'm OT but i'm having this issue:
I'm behind a proxy on my college network, if i turn off the wifi and type "http://MyMacName" or "http://localhost" or "http://127.0.0.1" i got an error msg from firefox cause i'm offline. If i turn on airport and connect to the college network i got and error from the proxy "ERROR The requested URL could not be retrieved
". Really don't know what to do..I checked the hosts file but it seems ok (i should be correctly 127.0.0.1)

SAMM
February 11, 2010
#53

This is a perfect walk-through for someone who just wants to get this stuff working so they can move on with development. Thanks!

Simeon
February 11, 2010
#54

where and how do I install phpmyadmin? and anything I want to view needs to be put into the sites folder correct?

ScottNYC
February 12, 2010
#55

Hi, excellent guide! Thank you very much

NatMil
February 16, 2010
#56

Thanks for the tutorial. I found out that you can recently download a snow leopard version of mysql which is probably the same as the leopard version.

Imre
February 19, 2010
#57

Hi I have a corrupted installation of apache on snow leopard.
Anyone knows how to reinstall?
Please help

kappu
February 19, 2010
#58

Dude, you need a donation button.

Thanks!

Tom
February 20, 2010
#59

Quick tip : you need to set "short_open_tag = On" in /etc/php.ini if you want to use the short tag <? instead of <?php

I thought something was wrong until I edited my test.php page to use <?php
Now it works. I guess it's better to use the long php tags, but in case you don't it's good to know this little tip.

Some Guy
February 20, 2010
#60

Ummm...I'm a jackass...you did put a note there about the short tags...nevermind..

p.s. Great info here..thanks very much!

Some Guy
February 20, 2010
#61

Very nice - perfect instructions got me set up quickly. Thanks much!

Ray Wenderlich
March 1, 2010
#62

When I log in to http://localhost/ it states that the server cannot be found. Obviously there's something wrong with the Apache setup but I can't figure out where to look. Once that's up and running I should be able to get PHP and MySQL running... Anyone out there in the same boat?

BluemantisNY
March 2, 2010
#63

Simple et précis, bravo.
A l'essentiel tu nous à conduis ....
Merci

gderenge
March 12, 2010
#64

Loved this! Wish I had found it earlier!!

Girton
March 12, 2010
#65

use
sudo apachectl graceful
not
sudo apachectl restart

Voodoo
March 13, 2010
#66

Thanks for the tutorial.

baenre
March 15, 2010
#67

Thanks for this tutorial! It worked perfectly for me.

I was also having trouble getting phpMyAdmin working. I discovered that you need to update the socket for phpMyAdmin just as you did for php.ini. So edit config.inc.php like this:

change-- $cfg['Servers'][$i]['socket'] = '';
to-- $cfg['Servers'][$i]['socket'] = '/tmp/mysql.sock';

I think you could probably do this in the regular phpMyAdmin setup menu too. I won't try it because I've got things running and I need to get back to work!

Adrienne Adams
March 18, 2010
#68

I cannot locate the /etc/... directory. Is this because I am not running Mac OS X Snow Leopard not Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server?

Ben
March 20, 2010
#69

Thanks for saving my time :)
@Ben: /etc and other unix like directories don't show up by default. You can open terminal by searching spotlight for "terminal" or opening /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app
In Terminal, type "open /etc" (without quotes) and you have it.

Vang Le
March 23, 2010
#70

Useful info. Beautiful blog design. Good work.

Reiser
April 2, 2010
#71

WAHOO!! That was so helpful. Thanks for taking the time to publish this. Perfect for those of us just getting started.

Tyr
April 5, 2010
#72

Thank you for a very clear tutorial.

Niels Bom
April 6, 2010
#73

Very well written tutorial, thank you

Jhimac
April 7, 2010
#74

Well written and simple. Got me exactly where i wanted to. Thanks.

April 10, 2010
#75

Thanks for this very clear and concise tutorial.

I'm curious if it's just me and there's some setting I can change but when I try to access php files using http://localhost it just returns the code as plain text, however if I use my local ip address, or even 127.0.0.1 it returns the parsed output like it's supposed to.

Ryan Arana
April 10, 2010
#76

Great stuff!

Bert
April 12, 2010
#77

Thanks :)
I used just the mysql part of this tutorial, and it worked perfectly!
Now if the mysql people would just put the above short instructions in their README.txt

Asif
April 17, 2010
#78

Great! Quick and concise. Thank you.

April 18, 2010
#79

I get error messages in terminal , that error logs cannot be open acces denied. And the browsers loads without ever finding a page. Any ideas?

Tony
April 21, 2010
#80

Thanks for the reference. I like your blog by the way. Is this your own custom design and program?

websitedesignby.com
April 22, 2010
#81

Yes, except the HTML of the articles, with "SECTION" comments in the source, generated by DokuWiki.

Jérôme Jaglale
April 22, 2010
#82

Great straight-to-the-point installation instructions.
Thank you.

Lior Tamir
April 25, 2010
#83

Perfect instructions! Many Thanks!

Lucas
April 26, 2010
#84

You should also add that you will need to change DirectoryIndex to include...

DirectoryIndex index.htm index.html index.php

Tom Lynch
May 4, 2010
#85

Really really nice tutorial! Thanks

Philippe
May 5, 2010
#86

the 10.6 Mysql package is a tarball. is there an installer out there that i'm not aware of?

b_dubb
May 6, 2010
#87

Hi,
I think the install went ok, but where do I enter /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql to test it?
Thanks,

Scott Gerling
May 9, 2010
#88

Useless.
groupadd mysql
command not found

what now?

grumpster
May 11, 2010
#89

FOUND IT, just needed to download the .dmg instead of the tarball.

grumpster
May 11, 2010
#90

Thanks a lot!

Roberto R.
May 11, 2010
#91

the 64 bit .dmg? or the 32 bit .dmg? which is best for 10.6?

b_dubb
May 13, 2010
#92

Very nice and handy, thank you.
I'll add a couple of things though:

1) add the mysql bin path to the PATH environment variable: edit (or create if it doesn't exist) the file .profile in your home directory, then add the following line:

export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/mysql/bin

save and close. on the next terminal window you open, you should be able to enter mysql commands without specifying the full path (i.e. mysql, mysqladmin...)

2) set the password for the mysql root account. By default the mysql root account comes with no password, so it would be much safer to set one. Open the terminal and issue the following command:

sudo mysqladmin -u root password NEWPASSWORD

(or use /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqladmin, instead of mysqladmin, if you didn't update the PATH as previously specified).

fabio cionini
May 17, 2010
#93

Nice - concise. thanks

ron hamermsa
May 17, 2010
#94

Excellent! Easy for anyone with a bit of command-line experience.

For B-dubb: Snow Leopard is 64-bit native, BUT, it really depends on the processor. Only Intel (but not the early ones) are 64-bit. See this Apple Doc:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3696

fdoc
May 19, 2010
#95

Great tutorial
Lots of thanks!

Federico Carol
May 20, 2010
#96

Thanks..:-)..

Alim Bolar
May 23, 2010
#97

a much easier way to add a path in OS X:

sudo sh -c 'echo "/usr/local/mysql/bin" > /etc/paths.d/mysql'

Elliot Betancourt
May 24, 2010
#98

Thanks! =)

Argent Ounce
May 26, 2010
#99

Great, straight forward.
@Elliot I've been looking for that line for ages.

sudo sh -c 'echo "/usr/local/mysql/bin" > /etc/paths.d/mysql'

Exactly what I've needed. The biggest advantage over using the .profile method, it also works when calling programs from within a shell script

Richard
May 26, 2010
#100

Excellent! Very helpful. Thank you very much.

Ed A
May 31, 2010
#101

Brilliant! I had been trying to use entropy and it tryed to download the php files rather than open them. I uninstalled entropy, did this and it worked! Thank you.

Tommy
June 1, 2010
#102

Everything is working fine, just one problem: I can't access my own MySQL with PHPMyAdmin. It asks for a password and I don't know what it want's… I never specified anything. Just installed as described above.

W. M.
June 3, 2010
#103

Thank you to you, God, Satan, Allah, Buddha, Ganesha and all the others out there that tried to foil/help me as I was the idiot trying to use the binaries, not the DMG-a stage five Arghh all day long. Working great - Props,

-Stu P. Didiot

Biff del Norte
June 8, 2010
#104

Where do I find my.cnf using this installation method? Not appearing in /etc

June 9, 2010
#105

I need help. PHPMyAdmin wants a username and password though I did not specify one.

W. M.
June 10, 2010
#106

THANK YOU !! THAT WAS HELPFUL

Wael
June 10, 2010
#107

This is excellent! Just said "Goodbye" to MAMP. That's a heavy shit, and a ridiculously wastage of memory when PHP and Apache are given with Mac OS itself!

VASUKi
June 11, 2010
#108

Parabens! (Congratulations!)
For this great doc.
Thanks a lot.

Thierry
June 17, 2010
#109

Thanks works like a charm,
Apart from that I also wanted to change my Document Root to somewhere on my desktop.

This wasn't too hard, all I had to do was sudo nano /etc/apache2/httpd.conf and replace all instances of the previous documentroot with my new path (2 instances)

But this made a Forbidden page come up when trying to access document root. No problem, wentback into httpd.conf, looked up User _www, changed it to User Elad (my account) and left the Group _www the same.

Everything works perfectly.

Ty for guide

Elad Nava
June 20, 2010
#110

Thanks!

Anoop J S
June 20, 2010
#111

I am new to the mac environment (less than 6 months) and this was the first time I was trying to host my very simple website on my server. You are a real lifesaver and I cannot thank you enough.

The real beauty of this page is in its simplicity.

May God bless you with many beautiful babies! :)

Zarrar Khan
June 23, 2010
#112

Thanks for the guide. I'm having a problem though.

When I enable PHP by uncommenting that line in httpd.conf, my VirtualHosts stop working. Any ideas why?

John
June 24, 2010
#113

Ah! Fixed it. I didn't realize the httpd.conf file couldn't have mid-line comments. I had changed this:

#LoadModule php5_module libexec/apache2/libphp5.so

...to this:

LoadModule php5_module libexec/apache2/libphp5.so #edited by John

...so that if anything went wrong I could easily find the line that I'd edited.

The tip is to open up Console and check if apache is giving you any errors (which it certainly was doing a lot of in my case).

The same John as comment #113
June 24, 2010
#114

Brill!

FADMark
June 25, 2010
#115

Thanks!!!

It's a great doc!!!

alexandre Takashi
June 28, 2010
#116

doesn't work for me :(

greg
June 29, 2010
#117

Thanks a lot.

Ignacio
July 2, 2010
#118

This was amazing, I was ready to climb mountains and slay dragons for a tutorial this clear. Cheers!

Johnny
July 2, 2010
#119

this was just awesome man
thanks a lot...........
it finally started php in my macbook pro

Rahul
July 7, 2010
#120

thanks for the tutorial. simple & straightforward. much appreciated

Martin
July 11, 2010
#121

Short, sweet and fully functional. Thanks!

whisperycat
July 13, 2010
#122

Thanks man. It was of great help. Simple and amazing stuff. Some of the comments also helped me a lot. Thanks to all those guys.

Sreedhar Manchu
July 19, 2010
#123

If you already had mysql running, you can stop/start it like so:

sudo /Library/StartupItems/MySQLCOM/MySQLCOM stop
Password:
sudo /Library/StartupItems/MySQLCOM/MySQLCOM start
Password:

adam
July 19, 2010
#124

This is the greatest thing ever. You are the bomb!

Will Tran
July 22, 2010
#125

Re MySQL: I'd add a recommendation (reminder?) to run /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_secure_installation as a final step in its installation.

Jim Miller
July 25, 2010
#126

wow.. this is great...

Thanx a lot.. :)

GNS
July 25, 2010
#127

Really straightforward. Nice of you to post it.

cb
July 26, 2010
#128

to open httpd.conf you could write

sudo /Applications/TextEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/TextEdit /etc/apache2/httpd.conf

nice guide anyway! Thanks

dennz
July 27, 2010
#129

Very Nice, Thanks!!

Alex
July 27, 2010
#130

Perfect, thank you for the simplicity ;)

S
July 28, 2010
#131