¶ OS X's PHP Doesn't Have GD

Out Of The Box Apache On OS X

I figured since I was using OS X and it touts being UNIX compliant that for a local web development sandbox, I'd just use a local install of apache instead of a virtualized Linux install. I thought all I had to do was go to System Preferences, go to Sharing, then tick the checkbox next to Web Sharing and I'd be good to go. This is OS X after all, not some complicated Linux install that requires some arcane knowledge to administer.

Didn't work. Got an access denied when I tried to view my localhost. Fan-fail-tastic.

I went to check the access logs, which I assumed were in /var/log/apache2/error.log but there wasn't even a /var/log/apache2 directory to look in. OK, check out /var/log/system.log. Hmm, this stands out:

No such file or directory: httpd: could not open error log file /usr/logs/error_log

A quick search yields the solution, you need to do a sudo mkdir -p /var/log/apache2 first and make sure the error log is set to log there. (I'm not sure why so many paths are prefixed with /private

While the config file isn't how I'm used to seeing things and the entire a2ensite and a2dissite thing doesn't work this way, it does work. Though I find it really interesting that in the modern Linux distros that I've used, apache worked out of the box, but under OS X, it doesn't.

Onward.

Old Unix Guy

Last night, Christina and I were picking up some pineapples at a health food store when an older guy in front of us said I had a nice shirt, talking about my Apache: Mirrored Worldwide shirt. He asked me if I knew where the name came from and I remarked that Apache gets its name from the fact that Apache is A PAtCHy server. He responded "you truely are a geek, young man."