In an earlier article, I mentioned that MAMP Pro was still the best native GUI for managing web services on the Mac, now that macOS Server will no longer serve up those patchy services. After we cover the management in this article, you’ll likely understand why it comes it at $59.
So you’ve installed MAMP. And you need more than the few basic buttons available there. So MAMP Pro came with it and you can try it for a couple of weeks for free. When you open MAMP Pro, you’ll see a screen where you can perform a number of management tasks. This is a more traditional side-bar-driven screen that will look like what Server Admin might have looked like before the web services screen got simplified in macOS Server.
The Hosts item in SETTINGS will show you each host installed on the server. Think of a host as a site. Each web server can serve up a virtually unlimited number of websites. You can configure an IP binding to the site, or hav
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
If you click on the plus sign, you can add a site. In this example, I’ll add www.krypted.com and then click on create. When doing so, you can configure a database for each site (e.g. if you’re doing multi-tenant hosting), build a site off a template, or select a root directory for the site.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
The Apache tab of each host allows you to configure host-specific settings, including enabling options for directives such as Indexes, Includes, SymLink following, and CGI. More options than were in macOS Server for sure. You can also order allows, allow overrides, add new directives, set the index (or the default page of each site), add additional virtualhosts (such as krypted.com for www.krypted.com), and add a server admin email address.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
These were Apache-centric settings for each host. Click on the Nginx tab if you’re using Nginx instead of Apache. Nginx is a bit less “patchy” so there are a few less options here. But they’re similar: Configure an index, add parameters, and a feature not available in the GUI options for Apache: allow or deny access based on IP.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
The SSL tab allows you to generate a CSR, upload the cert and key file, and force connections to use https.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
The Extras tab allows you to automatically install standard web packages. For example, here we’ll select WordPress.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Click on the Databases tab. To connect a site to a database, enter the name of the database when prompted. Note: the site itself will need credentials in order to connect, and if you’ve setup an “Extra” in the above step, the database will automatically be configured.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Next, let’s configure the ports used by the web servers. The previous settings were per-site. The rest that we cover in this article will be per-server, as these are global settings applied to the daemons themselves. Each of those services will have a port or ports associated with them. For example, the standard web port used is 80 or 443 for SSL-based connections and the standard port for MySQL is 3306. For publicly-facing sites these would be the standard ports, and given how common they are, there’s a button for “Set ports to 80, 81, 443, 7443, 3306”. Otherwise, you can enter each independently. Because the attaching of daemons is done here, this is also where you configure the user that services run as, as well as when to start the services and truncate log files.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
The Editor option configures how the editor appears, which we’ll cover last in this article. The Editing option manages how the editor works (e.g. things like tabs, autocompletes, etc.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
The Fonts & Colors tab allows you to select each color assigned to various types of text.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
The Default Apps tab allows you to configure which app is opened when opening each type of file supported.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Again, we’ll look at the editor later in this article. First, let’s finish getting the web server setup. Click on Apache. Here, you can load new Apache mods you download from the interwebs. I should mention that an important security step in locking down a publicly-facing web server is to disable all of the mods you don’t absolutely need.
At the bottom of this screen, there’s also a handle little link to the directory with your logs, so you can read through them if needed.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
The Nginx option underneath is similar. Access to log files is there, as is the ability to enable installed Nginx mods.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.![]()
The MySQL option also provides access to some straight-forward command-line options, but in a nice GUI. Here, you can configure a root password for MySQL ( which does this: Reset A Lost MySQL Password ), enable phpMyAdmin, MySQL Workbench, and Sequel Pro-based administration, enable network access to the MySQL Service (using ports configured in the Ports section of the app) which I cover at Allow Remote Connections To MySQL, and view logs.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.![]()
The Dynamic DNS options are cool. Click there, and if your web server is behind a DHCP address, you can configure a dynamic DNS service including DNS-O-Matic, no-ip.com, dyn.com, easydns.com, etc. This way when you reboot and get a new IP address from your ISP, it’ll update the service automatically.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.![]()
Memcached is a distributed memory object caching system. It’s used to make sites appear faster or to distribute caching between servers for systems that, for example, get clustered. It’s included here for a reason, I’m sure of it! Either way, I actually use it for a few things and like the fact that it’s there. To enable, simply choose how much memory to give it, configure the logging level (usually low unless you’re troubleshooting), and gain access to logs. If you check the “Include Memcached server in GroupStart” then memcache will fire up when you start your web services.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.![]()
Click postfix. Here, you configure your server to route mail through an email account. If you run this from the command line, you can also configure your server to be a mail server; however, when you do that you’re likely to get mail bouncing all over the place. So if the server or a service on the server is supposed to send mail, it’s usually best to route through something like a gmail account.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.![]()
The Languages section allows you to configure how PHP, Python, Perl, and Ruby work on the server. For PHP, you can configure which version of PHP is installed, configure a version of PHP for hosts, enable caching (different than memcached), enable a few basic extensions (I’ve been playing with oauth a lot recently), choose logging options, and have a simple way to see the logs.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.![]()
Since you’re running on a Mac, you already have Python, but if you click on the Python option, you can make the version of Python bundled with Mac is 2.7.10 instead of 2.7.13.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.![]()
Click on Perl to do the same.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.![]()
Click on Ruby to do the same.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.![]()
The editor is also pretty easy to use. Simply use the plus sign to add a file you’d like to edit. Keep in mind when browsing that everything MAMP Pro needs is self-contained in the /Applications/MAMP directory, so it should be pretty easy to find files for editing.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.![]()
And that’s it. This seems like a lot of stuff, but between sites like ServerFault and other Apache/Nginx articles, you’ll likely find most of the things you need. It’s worth mentioning that I consider this another baby step to just managing Apache using config files. macOS Server tried hard to reduce the complexity of where different settings and options are derived from; MAMP Pro makes no allusion that web server management should be so simple. That’s one of the things I like about it. It’s like you went from riding in a buggy on the back of a bike to riding with training wheels. The more you know, the better off you are.
So you’ve installed MAMP. And you need more than the few basic buttons available there. So MAMP Pro came with it and you can try it for a couple of weeks for free. When you open MAMP Pro, you’ll see a screen where you can perform a number of management tasks. This is a more traditional side-bar-driven screen that will look like what Server Admin might have looked like before the web services screen got simplified in macOS Server.
The Hosts item in SETTINGS will show you each host installed on the server. Think of a host as a site. Each web server can serve up a virtually unlimited number of websites. You can configure an IP binding to the site, or hav
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
If you click on the plus sign, you can add a site. In this example, I’ll add www.krypted.com and then click on create. When doing so, you can configure a database for each site (e.g. if you’re doing multi-tenant hosting), build a site off a template, or select a root directory for the site.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
The Apache tab of each host allows you to configure host-specific settings, including enabling options for directives such as Indexes, Includes, SymLink following, and CGI. More options than were in macOS Server for sure. You can also order allows, allow overrides, add new directives, set the index (or the default page of each site), add additional virtualhosts (such as krypted.com for www.krypted.com), and add a server admin email address.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
These were Apache-centric settings for each host. Click on the Nginx tab if you’re using Nginx instead of Apache. Nginx is a bit less “patchy” so there are a few less options here. But they’re similar: Configure an index, add parameters, and a feature not available in the GUI options for Apache: allow or deny access based on IP.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
The SSL tab allows you to generate a CSR, upload the cert and key file, and force connections to use https.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
The Extras tab allows you to automatically install standard web packages. For example, here we’ll select WordPress.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Click on the Databases tab. To connect a site to a database, enter the name of the database when prompted. Note: the site itself will need credentials in order to connect, and if you’ve setup an “Extra” in the above step, the database will automatically be configured.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Next, let’s configure the ports used by the web servers. The previous settings were per-site. The rest that we cover in this article will be per-server, as these are global settings applied to the daemons themselves. Each of those services will have a port or ports associated with them. For example, the standard web port used is 80 or 443 for SSL-based connections and the standard port for MySQL is 3306. For publicly-facing sites these would be the standard ports, and given how common they are, there’s a button for “Set ports to 80, 81, 443, 7443, 3306”. Otherwise, you can enter each independently. Because the attaching of daemons is done here, this is also where you configure the user that services run as, as well as when to start the services and truncate log files.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
The Editor option configures how the editor appears, which we’ll cover last in this article. The Editing option manages how the editor works (e.g. things like tabs, autocompletes, etc.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
The Fonts & Colors tab allows you to select each color assigned to various types of text.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
The Default Apps tab allows you to configure which app is opened when opening each type of file supported.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Again, we’ll look at the editor later in this article. First, let’s finish getting the web server setup. Click on Apache. Here, you can load new Apache mods you download from the interwebs. I should mention that an important security step in locking down a publicly-facing web server is to disable all of the mods you don’t absolutely need.
At the bottom of this screen, there’s also a handle little link to the directory with your logs, so you can read through them if needed.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
The Nginx option underneath is similar. Access to log files is there, as is the ability to enable installed Nginx mods.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
The MySQL option also provides access to some straight-forward command-line options, but in a nice GUI. Here, you can configure a root password for MySQL ( which does this: Reset A Lost MySQL Password ), enable phpMyAdmin, MySQL Workbench, and Sequel Pro-based administration, enable network access to the MySQL Service (using ports configured in the Ports section of the app) which I cover at Allow Remote Connections To MySQL, and view logs.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
The Dynamic DNS options are cool. Click there, and if your web server is behind a DHCP address, you can configure a dynamic DNS service including DNS-O-Matic, no-ip.com, dyn.com, easydns.com, etc. This way when you reboot and get a new IP address from your ISP, it’ll update the service automatically.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Memcached is a distributed memory object caching system. It’s used to make sites appear faster or to distribute caching between servers for systems that, for example, get clustered. It’s included here for a reason, I’m sure of it! Either way, I actually use it for a few things and like the fact that it’s there. To enable, simply choose how much memory to give it, configure the logging level (usually low unless you’re troubleshooting), and gain access to logs. If you check the “Include Memcached server in GroupStart” then memcache will fire up when you start your web services.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Click postfix. Here, you configure your server to route mail through an email account. If you run this from the command line, you can also configure your server to be a mail server; however, when you do that you’re likely to get mail bouncing all over the place. So if the server or a service on the server is supposed to send mail, it’s usually best to route through something like a gmail account.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
The Languages section allows you to configure how PHP, Python, Perl, and Ruby work on the server. For PHP, you can configure which version of PHP is installed, configure a version of PHP for hosts, enable caching (different than memcached), enable a few basic extensions (I’ve been playing with oauth a lot recently), choose logging options, and have a simple way to see the logs.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Since you’re running on a Mac, you already have Python, but if you click on the Python option, you can make the version of Python bundled with Mac is 2.7.10 instead of 2.7.13.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Click on Perl to do the same.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Click on Ruby to do the same.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
The editor is also pretty easy to use. Simply use the plus sign to add a file you’d like to edit. Keep in mind when browsing that everything MAMP Pro needs is self-contained in the /Applications/MAMP directory, so it should be pretty easy to find files for editing.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
And that’s it. This seems like a lot of stuff, but between sites like ServerFault and other Apache/Nginx articles, you’ll likely find most of the things you need. It’s worth mentioning that I consider this another baby step to just managing Apache using config files. macOS Server tried hard to reduce the complexity of where different settings and options are derived from; MAMP Pro makes no allusion that web server management should be so simple. That’s one of the things I like about it. It’s like you went from riding in a buggy on the back of a bike to riding with training wheels. The more you know, the better off you are.
The post Replace the Web Services in macOS Server with MAMP Pro appeared first on krypted.com.