OxAlto Design Blog

<p>Someone left a comment after my last cry for help about installing CF8 + apache on Mac, so I thought I'd quickly run through the steps I took.

Assuming you're on the latest version of OSX, you *could* use the inbuilt Apache server. However, I've used MAMP, which is essentially a bundled version of Apache, MySQL, PHP.

1) Uninstall CF8 - If you've got it installed already (it's just going to make this easier)

2) Download MAMP from here

3) Download the 32bit (not 64bit, as, although MacOSx is a 64bit OS, the connector on MAMP is 32bit) version of CF8 from adobe.com

4) Install MAMP in the usual way - don't worry about CF yet - just get Apache + PHP working. NOTE - you only need MAMP, NOT MAMP pro. When configuring, set the apache + mySQL ports to their defaults. It should be now reading the files out of /applications/MAMP/htdocs when you go to http://localhost. If you don't get the MAMP start screen, check that a) both the lights in the MAMP Application window are green, and then you've got web sharing turned OFF in Settings/Sharing in OSX

5) So we'll assume you've got the MAMP start page working. If you've got a different place for your installed websites (personally I've got a whole drive which I use as my 'www' root) change it now in the MAMP config. As directory browsing appears to be enabled by default in MAMP, you should be able to see the folders/files in whatever directory you point it to when you go to localhost.

6) Now for CF. Install CF with the following - Single Server Instance, and use the built in webserver (we're not actually going to be using that for now, but I could never actually get the correct config in the installer to get it work on install)

7) Now open the ColdFusion Web Service Connector: You should be able to find this in Applications/ColdFusion (I'm actually writing this on a PC, so can't check the location, sorry).

8) On the window which opens, click "Add" to add a configuration. Use the following settings:

jrun Host: localhost
jrun Server: ColdFusion
Web Server: Apache
Configuration Directory: /Applications/MAMP/conf/apache
Configure web server for ColdFusion 8 Applications: ticked

And this is the important bit, in Advanced:

Enable verbose logging for connector: unticked
Enable native OS memory allocator: unticked
Build Apache module from source using APache eXtenSion tool: unticked
Directory and file name of server binary: /Applications/MAMP/bin/apache2/bin/httpd
Directory and file name of server control script: /Applications/MAMP/bin/apache2/bin/apachectl

Now, CF *should* have done a couple of things. One is rewrite your httpd.conf file to include CF settings, such as .cfm files, and the second is turned on Web sharing under your OSX settings - you need to go back and turn OFF web sharing - the reason is, that is the inbuilt OSX apache server, and not the MAMP one. It gets a little confusing if you don't do that, as you'll see an Apache notice, but it won't be running CF!

I then restart MAMP (if you've set the ports to defaults, it will require your password everytime, as if your port number is lower than 1000 it's sort of quasi protected as a service on OSX).

You should now be able to go to localhost/CFIDE/administrator where it should run the migration script. You'll then be good to go.

I'll double check and add the proper file locations another time when I'm on my Mac.