With frameworks like CakePHP it becomes almost impossible to develop proper web applications using a Mac. Below are the instructions to setting up the MAMP stack and creating virtual hosts for multiple projects.
First download MAMP:
Ill say it now, this is by far the best version of the lamp stack you are going to get when working on an Apple laptop. URL: https://www.mamp.info/
Second open preferences and set Apache to listen on port 80
Adding a virtual host in MAMP for Mac
The files that will need editing are opened with Atom from the command line. If that’s not your cup of tea you can replace the atom commands with “nano” or your own preferred text editor.
host file
Open your host file by pasting the following in your terminal:
atom /etc/hosts
You will see something like below. Add a “development” domain name. Just make one up, it will only be locally known to your computer. Be sure to match the ip address with the one before “localhost”. Saving this file will prompt you for your password.
## # Host Database # # localhost is used to configure the loopback interface # when the system is booting. Do not change this entry. ##
127.0.0.1 localhost 127.0.0.1 mydomainname.dev
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost ::1 localhost
vhost file
Next, open up your MAMP vhost conf file:
atom /Applications/MAMP/conf/apache/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf
Clear al of the file contents and paste the following:
NameVirtualHost *:80
<VirtualHost *:80> DocumentRoot /Applications/MAMP/htdocs ServerName localhost </VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:80> DocumentRoot “/Users/user/my/project/root” ServerName mydomainname.dev </VirtualHost>
For Every domain name you added inside your host file you will need to add a <VirtualHost> block. This block contains your project location and a ServerName. Set the ServerName exactly the same as the domain you added inside your host file and point the DocumentRoot to the root of your project.
Use Atom to open the main Apache configuration file, httpd.conf, which is located at Applications/MAMP/conf/apache/httpd.conf.
Scroll to the bottom of the file and locate the following lines (around 524–525):
# Virtual Hosts
# Include /Applications/MAMP/conf/apache/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf
Remove the hash (pound) sign from the beginning of the line that begins with Include:
Restart Mamp
Restart Mamp. Be sure have a project or index.html file inside your project folder. By browsing to the domain that you configured your project will show. That’s it.
