How do you configure the Apache server which ships Mac OS X?

Question

Mac OS X ships with apache pre-installed, but the files are in non-standard locations. This question is a place to collect information about where configuration files live, and how to tweak the apache installation to do things like serve php pages.

Answer 1

Apache Config file is: /private/etc/apache2/httpd.conf

Default DocumentRoot is: /Library/Webserver/Documents/

To enable PHP, at around line 114 (maybe) in the /private/etc/apache2/httpd.conf file is the following line:

#LoadModule php5_module     libexec/apache2/libphp5.so

Remove the pound sign to uncomment the line so now it looks like this:

LoadModule php5_module     libexec/apache2/libphp5.so

Restart Apache: System Preferences -> Sharing -> Un-check "Web Sharing" and re-check it. OR

$ sudo apachectl restart

Answer 2

httpd.conf is in /private/etc/apache2

Enable PHP by uncommenting line:

 LoadModule php5_module        libexec/apache2/libphp5.so

Answer 3

Running

$ httpd -V

will show you lots of useful server information, including where the httpd.conf file can be found.

Answer 4

/etc/httpd/users contains user-specific configuration files which can be used to override the global configuration. For example, adding "AddHandler server-parsed html" to the <Directory> block in the /etc/httpd/users/*.conf file that corresponds to one user will enable mod_include parsing of HTML files for that particular user's $HOME/Sites directory, but nowhere else.