Installing Apache and PHP on macOS Big Sur 11.6

				
					sudo su -
				
			

1) The Apache HTTP Server

As Apache 2.4 comes pre-packaged in macOS Big Sur 11.6, check the version to verify

					
						httpd -v
					
				

If the version number is proper, start the server by running the command

					
						apachectl start
					
				

Next, type http://localhost in the URL bar of the web browser. It should display the It works! page.

2) The It works! Page Location

The default It works! page is located inside /Library/WebServer/Documents as the index.html.en file.

3) Changing the Work Directory

Get back to the login directory typing

					
						cd ~
					
				

Navigate to your home directory (it is named with your user name). In my case, it is dennisgabil

					
						cd /Users/dennisgabil
					
				

There, create a directory for your web projects, say Sites

					
						mkdir Sites
					
				

For easy access later, you can place this newly created Sites directory in the Favorites section of your Mac's Finder. Do Spotlight Search (⌘ + SPACE) on your username and drag and drop Sites to the Finder sidebar.

4) Modifying httpd.conf

Next, navigate to /etc/apache2

					
						cd /etc/apache2
					
				

Create a backup of the httpd.conf file

					
						cp httpd.conf httpd.conf.bak
					
				

We need to make some changes to the httpd.conf file. Open it with vi editor

					
						vi httpd.conf
					
				

Find the line

#LoadModule php7_module libexec/apache2/libphp7.so

and uncomment it, i.e., remove # (focus the cursor on # and press x).

Then find the two lines below

DocumentRoot "/Library/WebServer/Documents"
<Directory "/Library/WebServer/Documents">

and change them to

DocumentRoot "/Users/dennisgabil/Sites"
<Directory "/Users/dennisgabil/Sites">

(You change /dennisgabil/ in the two paths to your /username/ ). For inserting text in vi, press i. Save the changes (press ESC, then : (SHIFT + :), then wq!)

5) Restart Apache

Restart the server by running the command

					
						apachectl restart
					
				

Now all your web projects can go inside /Users/dennisgabil/Sites. If you have a web project called, say, myproj, inside that directory, you can access it by typing localhost/myproj in the URL bar of your browser and it will display your default index.html (or index.php, keeping in mind that we are learning PHP) file. If you have a Git repository for your project, you can clone it there and work.

Just for the purpose of testing, create an index.php page that displays Hello, World! inside the /Sites directory (do not forget to change /dennisgabil to your /username in the path)

					
						echo '<?php echo "Hello, World!"; ?>' > /Users/dennisgabil/Sites/index.php
					
				

Access http://localhost. The page should display Hello, World!