Local host, apache, and Macintosh - php

Question

Server/port noob here. I just downloaded the latest Apache for my Mac OS X Lion. When I type in http: //localhost/ (no space), it comes up with a web page that says "It works." However, I can't get any other web page to open. I'm trying to get it to read a PHP document for a mobile web application, but it keeps 404ing and saying the document doesn't exist (the only document it has read thus far is the index.html document that says "It works"). I have tried things like http: //local host/User/directoryofthemobileapp/index.php, and all sorts of things like that, then I tried dropping a copy of the mobile app into the folder with the "It works" html doc, and it still failed to recognize it. The path of the "It works" doc is /Library/WebServer/Documents/index.html.en, but this information hasn't helped me yet. I have tried a lot of different URLs to access documents on my Mac, but to no avail.
Thanks in advance! Help is appreciated!

Answer 1

change the contents of index.html.en
put this in it
<?php
phpinfo();
?>
if that works, it should tell you that php is indeed setup correctly and where all your directories are

Answer 2

If you're looking to do some PHP development I recommend setting yourself up with what's known as a MAMP Stack. It stands for Mac, Apache, PHP, MySQL.
There's a great (free) program here that lets you set it all up easily:
http://www.mamp.info/en/index.html
From MAMP's easy interface you can set the Apache document root manually to any location on your Mac so you can start serving files locally.
Once you feel a bit more comfortable with the configuration and the server side technologies, I can't recommend Vagrant enough (http://www.vagrantup.com). It allows you to set up and provision virtual servers. I do all of my PHP development on a LAMP stack and I have total control. It's a great learning experience. Using a provisioning tool like Puppet and Chef you can deploy your development environment on any machine.

Answer 3

The default document root for apache on Mac OSX (Lion + atleast) is
/Library/WebServer/Documents/
You will need to put your documents here to be able to access them from a browser or change the apache configuration to point the document root to the appropriate directory on your machine.
You must also make sure that the webserver has permission to read the files you are trying to serve over the internet. For example the following directory structure represents my Mac's /Library/WebServer/Documents/ directory:
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 31958 Jun 20 2012 PoweredByMacOSXLarge.gif
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 3726 Jun 20 2012 PoweredByMacOSX.gif
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 44 Jul 31 13:53 index.html.en
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 44 Jan 7 16:00 index.php
Since apache is running as Root on my machine (bad practice by the way, apache should not be running as a priveledged user, however my webserver is not exposed to the internet so there is little risk in my case) it can read all of the files in the directory, and when i point my browser to http:// localhost/index.php I see the contents of index.php:
<?php
echo '<h1>This also works</h1>';
?>