Compiling PHP on Mac OS X

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Getting Started

You may want to recompile PHP on your Mac for a number reasons such as need a newer version, missing some features you need, testing, or whatever. Some of the most common reasons I found were people needing GD support because the version of PHP that comes with Mac OS X doesn't have it. In this I'll let you know what you need and how to get it done.

Apache

We'll need to recompile Apache even though it already comes with our system because for some unknown reason (to me) the compiled version of Apache that comes with our systems doesn't play too well when we compile PHP. Anyways without going into further details, read through this article real quick, Compiling Apache on Mac OS X, and come back here. Should only take ya like 5 minutes...

Time for PHP

Welcome back! Next, download the latest copy of the PHP source (5.2.5 as of this writting) compressed in tar.gz format from this URL, http://www.php.net/downloads.php. Once complete and you don't care about compiling PHP with any other options such as GD Support, MySQL, etc, and you just want the basic PHP then you can go back to your Terminal, cd into the directory where you downloaded PHP and run the following commands:

$ tar -xvzf php-5.2.5.tar.gz
$ cd php-5.2.5
$ ./configure --enable-layout=Darwin --enable-mods-shared=all --prefix=/usr --mandir=/usr/share/man --localstatedir=/var --infodir=/usr/share/info --disable-dependency-tracking --with-apxs2=/usr/sbin/apxs --with-kerberos=/usr --enable-cli
$ make
$ sudo make install

Like Apache, you would need your root password to install PHP with the last command. Once everything is complete you can go into Sharing from your System Preferences and restart Web Sharing and you will notice you are running the version of PHP that you downloaded!

Note: Whenever editing your apache configuration you will need to restart it in order to see the new changes.

If you do want to build PHP with additional features then proceed below and follow the setup of instructions for each and either feature. For starters we can unpack PHP.

$ tar -xvzf php-5.2.5.tar.gz

Later when I say to build PHP with whatever ./configure command I just mean running the command from your Terminal while being in the directory where you unpacked PHP.

GD Support?

I won't leave you hanging wondering how to install GD since I brought it up earlier and its quite easy so lets do it! If you want jpeg support with GD then you need to install libjpeg. You can download the latest stable source code from http://www.ijg.org/files/. Once you get it go back to your terminal and run the following commands:

$ tar -zxvf jpegsrc.v6b.tar.gz
$ cd jpeg-6b
$ cp /usr/share/libtool/config.sub .
$ cp /usr/share/libtool/config.guess .
$ env CFLAGS="-O -g -arch i386 -arch ppc" LDFLAGS="-arch i386 -arch ppc" ./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc --localstatedir=/var --mandir=/usr/share/man --enable-shared --enable-static
$ make
$ sudo make install
$ sudo ranlib /usr/local/lib/libjpeg.a

That's that for libjpeg. Now if you also want png support we need to grab libpng from http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/libpng.html. When done, lets go back into our terminal and run the following commands:

$ tar -xvzf libpng-1.2.22.tar.gz
$ cd libpng-1.2.22
$ env CFLAGS="-O -g -arch i386 -arch ppc" LDFLAGS="-arch i386 -arch ppc" ./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc --localstatedir=/var --mandir=/usr/share/man --disable-dependency-tracking
$ make
$ sudo make install
$ sudo ranlib /usr/local/lib/libpng.a

Alright all set! Now we just have to go back to PHP and configure it with the options for GD. Below is the command:

$ ./configure --enable-layout=Darwin --enable-mods-shared=all --prefix=/usr --mandir=/usr/share/man --localstatedir=/var --infodir=/usr/share/info --disable-dependency-tracking --with-apxs2=/usr/sbin/apxs --with-kerberos=/usr --enable-cli --with-jpeg-dir=/usr/local/bin --with-png-dir=/usr/local/bin --with-gd

All I added were the last 3 options. If you didn't add libjpeg or libpng then you can remove them from the options respectively. After done configuring just remember to make and make install and your done!

MySQL

What PHP build would be complete without MySQL support? This step is super easy, simply go to http://www.mysql.com and download the latest stable version (5.0.45 as of this writing) for your platform and install it. The installation will place the files in a mysql directory in /usr/local. You can see which directory it was installed in by running the following command:

$ ls -lah /usr/local | grep mysql

Now that you've got the MySQL installation directory its helpful to create an alias directory without the version number at the end that will point to your current working version. This is also helpful so you can install multiple versions of software and when you want to switch between them you could simply change where the alias points to. If your MySQL directory was installed to /usr/local/mysql-5.0.45-osx10.4-i686 then this would be your command to create an alias:

$ sudo ln -s /usr/local/mysql-5.0.45-osx10.4-i686 /usr/local/mysql

Also, if you would like to access MySQL from the command line without having to type the full path to the binaries each them then I'd recommend appending your MySQL path to your $PATH environment variable:

$ echo "export PATH=\$PATH:/usr/local/mysql/bin" >> ~/.profile

The above line appends MySQL to your $PATH environment variable and from here on every Terminal window you open will find its way to MySQL.

Continuing on with PHP, depending which MySQL support you want (MySQL, MySQLi, PDO, or all) then just pick out whatever you want and don't want from the line below:

--with-mysql-sock=/var/mysql --with-mysqli=/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_config --with-mysql=/usr/local/mysql --with-pdo-mysql=/usr/local/mysql

Conclusion

There are many more options you can add to the configure script to set certain features. To view all the options available you can run ./configure --help and that will spit out just about all the ways you can configure your build. Below is the configure command I used:

$ ./configure --enable-layout=Darwin --enable-mods-shared=all --prefix=/usr --mandir=/usr/share/man --localstatedir=/var --infodir=/usr/share/info --disable-dependency-tracking --with-apxs2=/usr/sbin/apxs --with-ldap=/usr --with-kerberos=/usr --enable-cli --with-zlib-dir=/usr --enable-trans-sid --with-xml --enable-exif --enable-ftp --enable-mbstring --enable-mbregex --enable-dbx --enable-sockets --with-iodbc=/usr --with-curl=/usr --with-config-file-path=/etc --sysconfdir=/private/etc --with-mysql-sock=/var/mysql --with-mysqli=/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_config --with-mysql=/usr/local/mysql --with-xmlrpc --with-xsl=/usr --with-pdo-mysql=/usr/local/mysql --enable-soap --with-pear --with-jpeg-dir=/usr/local/bin
--with-png-dir=/usr/local/bin --with-gd

Its also important to note that when doing system updates, not just little security updates or other application updates, but big critical system updates that brings you from something like 10.5.0 to 10.5.1 might rid your Apache and/or PHP setup. Nothing bad will happen, they will just overwrite your setup with their update. If you happened to keep your build then you can just go back and run sudo make install or you can just download the latest versions of the software we used here and redo the steps.

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52 Responses to “Compiling PHP on Mac OS X”

  1. Lee Perry Says:

    Hi Richard, first Thanks for the how to most excellent. I am having a problem with the mysql though.

    checking for MySQL support for PDO… yes
    checking for mysql_config… /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_config
    checking for mysql_query in -lmysqlclient… no
    checking for mysql_query in -lmysqlclient… (cached) no
    configure: error: PDO_MYSQL configure failed. Please check config.log for more information.

    This is the end of config.log :

    configure:71760: gcc -o conftest -I/usr/include -g -O2 -no-cpp-precomp -Wl,-rpath,/usr/local/mysql/lib -L/usr/local/mysql/lib -liconv $
    ld: warning in /usr/local/mysql/lib/libmysqlclient.dylib, file is not of required architecture
    Undefined symbols:
    “_mysql_query”, referenced from:
    _main in ccypYIpb.o
    ld: symbol(s) not found
    collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
    configure: failed program was:
    #line 71749 “configure”
    #include “confdefs.h”
    /* Override any gcc2 internal prototype to avoid an error. */
    /* We use char because int might match the return type of a gcc2
    builtin and then its argument prototype would still apply. */
    char mysql_query();

    mysql version is: mysql-5.0.51a-osx10.5-x86_64

    Also I had to change sudo ranlib /usr/local/lib/libjpeg.a to sudo ranlib /usr/lib/libjpeg.a
    and sudo ranlib /usr/local/lib/libpng.a to sudo ranlib /usr/lib/libpng.a

    I would be very grateful if you could help me get pdo_msql working.

    kind regards,

    lee. ;)

  2. Lee Perry Says:

    Hi again, I fixed the pdo problem by uninstalling the 64 bit version of mysql and installing a 32bit version.

    I haven’t tested it yet but it all complied ok and phpinfo reports the gd and pdo_mysql.

    Thanks again.

    lee.

  3. Dan LaSota Says:

    Thanks very much for this write up. I tried in vain to change the directory that apache would be placed into to

    /usr/local/apache2

    I did this by using different layouts and by trying to change the –prefix=/path/to/where/I/wanted/It

    Each time I did this, it compiled as expected, but I could not get it to talk with php. I gave up after several attempts. After all I wanted my server up and the directory location is not that important.

    One thing with your location I see as a disadvantage though, is that the server process *is* controlled by the GUI Sharing Control Panel. Is there a command line way of changing the “on” to “off” and back again?

    Again,

    Thanks.

    Dan LaSota

  4. Richard Sumilang Says:

    Re: Dan LaSota

    Since you changed the build location of your Apache Webserver then you must specify the appropriate location of apxs when building PHP which in your case should be somewhere in /usr/local/apache2.

    You can also restart Apache from the command line, you don’t have to use the Sharing applet in your System Preferences. To do so please read apachectl(8).

    Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more soon :)

    Regards,
    Richard Sumilang

  5. Tony Says:

    Fantastic - I was pulling my hair out trying to get this going a few days ago - now I’m up and running. Thanks for taking the time to document this.

    Do you have any ideas on how to get a full 64bit Apache/PHP/mySQL stack running on 10.5?

    Regards,
    Tony.

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  8. Matt Clifton Says:

    Hopefully not a dumb question - do I have to build PHP first, then add the jpeg/gif libraries and recompile, as you have above, or can I build the libraries first, then just build PHP once at the end? Thanks!

  9. Richard Sumilang Says:

    Hi Matt,

    Sorry for the confusion. You only have to build PHP once which would be at the end after you install the other libraries you want it to support. The sub-sections under PHP just show you what to do if you want GD/MySQL support along with what to add to your configure command for the PHP build. I guess it could be a little confusing so I think I’ll reorder the article to make more sense later tonight.

    Thanks for your post!

    Regards,
    Richard Sumilang

  10. Aaron Says:

    I couldn’t understand some parts of this article Compiling PHP on Mac OS X, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.

  11. Manny Says:

    Thanks for the great article.

    I am running into problems with the jpeg and png.

    It goves me an error after the make install , and of course when I
    sudo ranlib /usr/local/lib/libjpeg.a

    It tells me it can not find it ..

    Do you have any idea why this could be happening?

  12. Ahmed Says:

    Hi. First thank you very much for this. Second, I have a problem and I hope you can help me please!

    I want to install Oracle Client 10g on Mac OS X 10.5.2 and have the php recompiled to talk to it (via oci). To start with, I have system installed Apache and php enabled and working. If I put a phpinfo page in my website, it renders correct.

    I followed your tutorials on compiling Apache and PHP (5.2.6, cause I could not find the 5.2.5!). To your php configure parameters, I just added –with-oci8=/Applications/Oracle/ohome

    The php and httpd folders which I have downloaded and unzipped and run the command over, are in Library. Now, the http://localhost in Safari gives back “can’t connect to the server”.

    Any suggestions please?

    And what if I also want to add the PEAR to the configuration please?

    Thank you very much for your time and support.

    PS: I have set all the Oracle Client installation variables already.

  13. yves Says:

    I have successfully installed php 5.2.6 on OS X 10.5.2 with the followinf options :

    LDFLAGS=’-arch x86_64′ ./configure \

    –with-mysql=/usr/local/mysql \
    –with-mysqli=/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_config \

  14. arlie Says:

    I’ve tried this again. I’m up to this command

    sudo ranlib /usr/local/lib/libpng.a

    and I’m receiving this error

    ranlib: can’t open file: /usr/local/lib/libpng.a (No such file or directory)

    I’m installing libpnt-1.2.29. This seems to be the most current version.

    Thanks for all the help.

  15. CT Says:

    For those whose libpng.a and libjpeg.a aren’t in /usr/local/lib, try instead sudo ranlib /usr/lib/libjpeg.a and sudo ranlib /usr/lib/libpng.a

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  19. Peter Says:

    Richard, many thanks for your description. I was pulling my hair out with a bug in the Entropy.ch PHP build. Finally uninstalled it and followed your guidelines. It worked immediately. Terrific. And I have no the confidence that I have a solid, maintenable install. Thanks again !

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