As you may have spotted, yesterday we gained a brand-new shiny Mac Mini Server (with an asset sticker on the front), running a virgin install of OS X Server 10.6. This is the story of how you get it to run the things we need for Jerome.
1. Update
First of all, update OS X using Software Update. It’s not difficult, and it fixes any glitches which have been spotted. This is a development box, so we’re not too bothered about an update breaking things in a most spectacular fashion.
2. Enable PHP
OS X 10.6, although it ships with Apache 2, doesn’t ship with PHP enabled by default. Fortunately PHP5 is bundled and mostly ready to go, it just needs turning on. I found an excellent walkthrough on Foundation PHP which covers everything you need to do to get PHP switched on and running.
Basically, it’s enabling the PHP5 module in /etc/apache2/httpd.conf and copying /etc/php.ini.default to /etc/php.ini. There’s a bit more on enabling some error notices, but that’s more PHP configuration than actual enabling.
3. MacPorts
MacPorts provides a repository-like way of installing things in OS X, including MongoDB (which we need later).
Xcode
Before installing MacPorts you need to head to the Mac Dev Center and grab Xcode. It’s free (but quite a large download), you just need to register. Make sure you install it with the UNIX Development Tools enabled, or else MacPorts will throw a wobbler when you install it.
We’re not using Xcode for anything else, but MacPorts needs it for the compilation tools.
MacPorts
Installing MacPorts is stupidly easy. Download the installer, and run it.
