Since it’s turned into almost a daily thing for me to open terminal and kill imagent, I decided to write that into applescript and make an icon so I can just click it.  It’s only one line of applescript:

do shell script "killall imagent"

That’s all there is to it, but in case you don’t know or want to deal with compiling that yourself, you can download this pre-built version of kill-imagent.

1. Install ImageMagick

sudo port install ImageMagick

2. Install imagic module

You’d expect to just be able to run “pecl install imagick” and I would probably try it first.  However the instructions below will work if the automatic installation returns the error: ImageMagick MagickWand API configuration program… configure: error: not found. Please provide a path to MagickWand-config or Wand-config program. ERROR: ‘/private/tmp/pear/temp/imagick/configure –with-imagick=/opt/local/bin/’ failed.

Note version is 3.0.1 in these instructions, adjust the commands depending on the version that is downloaded by pecl.

pecl download imagick
tar xvzf imagick-3.0.1.tgz
cd imagick-3.0.1
phpize
./configure --with-imagick=/opt/local
make
sudo make install

The install process will create a file “imagick.so”, but it may not be automatically installed in the correct location depending on your PHP path settings.  The install will output the location of the .so file so if necessary, you can manually move that file to the extensions directory for your web server.

3. Append to php.ini

extension=imagick.so

That should be it.  Restart Apache and view phpinfo.php. There should be a section for ImageMagick

1.Turn on Apache

Go to System Settings->Sharing and turn on Web Sharing. If necessary click the button that says “Create Home Folder” which will create a folder called “Sites” in your home directory.  You now have a web server that you can access at http://localhost/~username/  (“username” being your own account login name)

2. Edit /private/etc/apache2/httpd.conf

To enable PHP uncomment (remove the number sign at the beginning of) the line:

#LoadModule php5_module libexec/apache2/libphp5.so

(optional) you can re-map the server root to your home website directory by editing DocumentRoot:

DocumentRoot “/Users/username/Sites”

If you wish to use .htaccess files then look a bit further down AllowOverride and set it to “All” like so:

Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
Order deny,allow
Deny from all

3. Edit /private/etc/apache2/users/username.conf

Your user directory has it’s own permissions as well which are located in this separate file.  You may wish to enable FollowSymLinks and AllowOverride again here by changing these two lines like so:

Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride to All

4. Copy /private/etc/php.ini.default to /private/etc/php.ini

OSX includes a default php.ini file that you can use but you must rename or copy it first.  If you don’t do this then PHP will still run but it will just be using the default initialization settings with no way for you to override them.

Edit these settings in php.ini (some of these settings will not come into play until they are installed)

display_errors = On
mysql.default_socket = /tmp/mysql.sock
pdo_mysql.default_socket=/tmp/mysql.sock
date.timezone = ‘America/Chicago’
include_path = “.:/usr/lib/php/pear”

5. (Optional) Install PEAR

If you use the PEAR libraries you can install them using the included phar file like so:

sudo php /usr/lib/php/install-pear-nozlib.phar
sudo pear config-set php_ini /private/etc/php.ini
sudo pecl config-set php_ini /private/etc/php.ini
sudo pear upgrade-all

6.  Install MySQL

This doesn’t really require instructions, simply download the latest MySQL from mysql.com.  I installed the 32 bit version, however it may be possible to run the 64 bit version as well.

7. (Optional) Install Apache Plugins

If you use encryption you may need to install mcrypt.  Instructions have been provided by Michael Gracie

If you use the Zend debugger you can install that using these instructions.

Using a debugger really pays off in the long run in my opinion.  It gives you so much visibility and insight into what’s happening in your code and allows you to work faster.  Most developers that I know don’t bother installing a debugger for PHP web applications because either they either aren’t aware of how well it works and/or they think the initial setup is a pain.  The setup does have a few steps but actually isn’t difficult.  This video walks you through all of the steps to install the Zend debugger.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Download links referenced in the video:

Zend Studio Web Debugger (Apache Module):
http://www.zend.com/en/products/studio/downloads

Zend Debugger Plugin Install Site (Eclipse Plugin):
http://downloads.zend.com/pdt

Optionally you can download the Zend debugger plugin and install it manually by copying the files to your Eclipse folder instead of using the “Install Site”  That can be downloaded here: http://www.zend.com/en/community/pdt 

Configuration text for php.ini

zend_extension=/usr/lib/php/extensions/ZendDebugger.so
zend_debugger.expose_remotely=always
zend_debugger.connector_port=10000
zend_debugger.allow_hosts=127.0.0.1/32,192.168.*.*,10.*.*.*

First you need to have a server that is running VNC, but most likely only has it’s SSH port exposed. I’ll assume that SSH is on port 22 and VNC is on port 5900 (these are the default ports for these services). I’ll also assume that you have the ssh command and a VNC client installed on your client machine.

1. On your client machine, open a command line window and enter the following to create the SSH tunnel:

ssh -N -p 22 USERNAME@YOURSERVER -L 5901/localhost/5900

Replace USERNAME with your server username, and replace YOURSERVER with your server address (ie verysimple.com or 192.168.1.99)

2. Once you enter this command you’ll be prompted for the server password. Enter the password. You will see no feedback in the terminal window, but the SSH tunnel is now active.

3. Open your VNC client and connect to the address “localhost:5901″ If you have a password set for VNC access then you will need to enter that now. If all goes well, you should see your server VNC desktop!

It might seem weird that you are connecting to localhost in your VNC client. But the the SSH tunnel you created is actually routing port 5901 on your localhost to port 5900 on your server.

If you want to enable these, you can run the following from Terminal:

cp /usr/share/vim/vim72/vimrc_example.vim ~/.vimrc
cp /usr/share/vim/vim72/gvimrc_example.vim ~/.gvimrc

Basically what this does is copy some sample configuration files that enable the additional features.  If you decide you don’t like them, you can just delete ~/.vimrc and ~/.gvimrc and everything will go back to normal.

I’m setting up a new machine and found a great tutorial written by Josh Lockhart on getting a PHP web development environment up and running on Snow Leopard.  This goes through almost everything to be up and running for a typical LAMP stack with unit testing using all of the default services.

Josh’s instructions include everything that I need except mcrypt & IMAP.  Luckily Michael Gracie has provided a walk-through for installing mcrypt on Snow Leopard which involves re-compiling some things, but isn’t as tough as it first appears.  A walk-through for installing IMAP support is available on activeColab (with a pre-built binary).

After getting PHP, mcrypt and IMAP going, the last step for me is setting up MySQL which has some caveats on OSX.  The main problem is that the MySQL installer places the mysql.sock file in a non-standard place and so you have to either create a link or alter your php.ini file before PHP will be able to talk to MySQL.  (If you get “Can’t connect to local MySQL server through socket ‘/var/mysql/mysql.sock’” or  “No such file or directory” when calling mysql_connect, then this is the problem)

After completing the steps on Josh’s & Michael’s pages and running the MySQL installation package, here are the additional steps that I like to take to get my local environment configured:

Edit /private/etc/php.ini

display_errors = On
mysql.default_socket = /tmp/mysql.sock
pdo_mysql.default_socket=/tmp/mysql.sock
date.timezone = ‘America/Chicago’

Edit /private/etc/apache2/httpd.conf

DocumentRoot “/Users/jason/Sites”

Edit /private/etc/apache2/users/jason.conf

Append FollowSymLinks to the Options

Change AllowOverride to All

I also like to change the permissions on php.ini and httpd.conf to allow my user account edit permissions and create an alias to those two files somewhere easy to get to.

Installing MAMP is probably easier, but for some reason I prefer using all of the services that are pre-bundled with OSX.  Also Snow Leopard includes PHP 5.3 which led me to find a couple of deprecated functions in some of our libraries.

Solution 1: Create a symbolic link

Open terminal and do the following:

sudo su
mkdir /var/mysql
ln -s /tmp/mysql.sock /var/mysql/mysql.sock

You just created a symbolic link in the place where PHP expects the socket file to be located so it should be happy.

Solution 2: Edit php.ini

If you don’t like the idea of creating a symbolic link, you can also simply alter your php.ini file to point PHP to the real location of mysql.sock.

Locate /etc/php.ini. (If php.ini doesn’t exist on your system, copy /etc/php.ini.default to /etc/php.ini).  You will likely have to do this from the terminal unless you have Finder configured to show hidden files.  Open the file and update the setting mysql.default_socket so it looks like this:

mysql.default_socket = /tmp/mysql.sock

To commit the change you need to restart Apache.  You can do that in System Settings -> Sharing, then  uncheck, then recheck Web Sharing.

TortoiseSVN is my personal favorite SVN client, unfortunately it’s only fully supported on Windows.  With a little bit of hacking, though, TortoiseSVN is usable on OSX.  You can checkout, commit, update view the repo, etc.  At this point there are no overlays or Finder contextual menus.  These instructions are not for the novice user, but chances are if you’re using SVN it shouldn’t be a problem.

Requirements:

1. Crossover or Wine for OSX

2. Subversion server using the svn: protocol (http: doesn’t work yet)

Step 1: Install Crossover/Wine

The first thing you need is either Crossover or Wine.  Crossover is the commercial version of Wine that is already customized for OSX.  With Wine you’ll probably have to learn some terminal commands.  The choice is up to you but for these instructions are for Crossover.  Wine should work the same but I don’t know what the interface is like so you’re on your own.  Please post a comment if you have any tips. After you’ve installed Crossover, download the .msi installer for TortoiseSVN.  My testing has been done with version 1.5.5.  If you have success with a more recent version, please post a comment.

Step 2: Create a Bottle and install TortoiseSVN

NOTE: For these instructions, use the default bottle name of “winxp”  If you use another name for your bottle, you’ll need to adjust the commands appropriately below.

Installing an app in Crossover is pretty easy using the installation Wizard.  Open Crossover and go to the menu item Configure -> Install Software.  Click on the button that says “Install Unsupported Software.”  Ignore the warning and click “Continue” to proceed.  If you are prompted, select the option to install to a “New bottle” and continue. Once you have a bottle created, Crossover will want to know where the installation file is.  Click the install button and select the TortoiseSVN .msi file that you downloaded.  This will run you throught the typical Windows installer.

Step 3: Using TortoiseSVN

Now that you have Crossover installed, created a bottle and have installed TortoiseSVN the big question is “how do I use it?”  The problem is that you normally use TortoiseSVN by right-clicking folders in Windows Explorer.  There is no explorer and there are no Finder contextual menus that have been added.

The solution is to set up some Crossover commands and then save them.  Basically TortoiseSVN supports various windows command-line arguments.  Crossover allows you to save a command and make it appear as a regular OSX application shortcut.  So you just need to initially execute the command, then save a shortcut so you don’t have to re-type it all the time.

Checkout an existing Repository:

1. Create a folder on your Desktop called “jasonrules”  (This will be the test folder used for the rest of the instructions.)

2. Enter the checkout command. To run a windows command, open Crossover and go to the menu item “Programs -> Run Command…”  There is a field for the windows command you would like to execute. The command to checkout is below.  replace USERNAME with your home folder name and MY.SVN.SERVER/REPOPATH with your full svn repo path.  You must keep all double-quotes in the command as they are typed below:

“/Users/USERNAME/Library/Application Support/CrossOver/Bottles/winxp/drive_c/Program Files/TortoiseSVN/bin/TortoiseProc.exe” /command:checkout /path:”/Users/USERNAME/Desktop/jasonrules” /url:”svn://MY.SVN.SERVER/REPOPATH“

3.  Click the “Run” button.  You should see the familiar TortoiseSVN dialog appear confirming your action and, if your server requires authentication, you’ll be prompted for your username and password. If successful, you should see the files pulling into your working folder at this point.   You don’t need to save this command because you generally only run it once.

You now have a working copy of your project.  Yay!

NOTE – BEFORE YOU SAVE ANY COMMANDS, GO TO BOTTLE MANAGEMENT AND DUPLICATE YOUR BOTTLE!  There seems to be an issue with Crossover where it doesn’t work when saving multiple commands with the same executable but different arguments.  Most TortoiseSVN commands use the same executable so this creates a problem.  For the moment my workaround is to create a separate bottle for each command.  Hopefully that will be resolved by Crossover.

Updating your working copy:

Once you have a working copy, the next logical thing is to update the project.  Of course if you just checked it out, it should be pretty much up-to-date, however you will use the update command all the time so you want to save it. Follow the same steps that you did for running the checkout command, only using the command below instead.  (Be sure to replace PROJECTNAME with the name of the folder that is now inside jasonrules.)

“/Users/USERNAME/Library/Application Support/CrossOver/Bottles/winxp/drive_c/Program Files/TortoiseSVN/bin/TortoiseProc.exe” /command:update /path:”/Users/USERNAME/Desktop/jasonrules/PROJECTNAME“

Click the “Run”button again and you should see the familiar TortoiseSVN dialog.  If all goes well, you will be able to successfully update the working directory.

Since you will want to run update regularly as you work, you should save a shortcut for this command.  To do this, click the “Save Command to Programs Menu” button.  This will create a shortcut icon which you can rename, drag it to your Dock or whatever you’d like to do.  Everytime you double-click this shortcut, the update command that you saved will be executed.

Committing Changes:

The last command I’m going to describe is the Commit command.  Basically updating and committing are the most common operations, so you should be able to do your basic work at this point.  The commit command is run the same as update:

“/Users/USERNAME/Library/Application Support/CrossOver/Bottles/winxp/drive_c/Program Files/TortoiseSVN/bin/TortoiseProc.exe” /command:commit /path:”/Users/USERNAME/Desktop/jasonrules/PROJECTNAME“

You should again see the familiar dialog and be able to commit just as if you were working in Windows.  Again, save this command.

Additional Information:

With the three commands I showed you above you should be able to do basic development work using TortoiseSVN in OSX. You will most likely want to repeat the process using your actual working directories and not the jasonrules folder on your Desktop.  One thing to note is that if you work on multiple projects, you’ll have to create separate shortcuts for all of them because the working directory path is hard-coded into the commands.

Obviously there are a lot more commands, branching, merging, patching, etc.  The basic concept behind running these is the same.  You just need to know the correct syntax in order to run them.  The inline TortoiseSVN help lists all of the commands.

I would be interested in hearing from anyone who comes up with more commands, or knows AppleScript and would be able to write contextual Finder menus.  I don’t think it would be too difficult.  The SCPlugin source code might provide some clues.

Please feel free to leave a comment if you used this tutorial and found it helpful (or not).