Why is php deprecated in macos?

1) The Apache HTTP Server

Apache 2.4 comes pre-packaged in macOS Monterey 12.4. Check the version to verify

If the version number is proper, start the server by running the command

Next, type //localhost in the URL bar of the web browser. It should display the It works! page.

The default It works! page is located inside /Library/WebServer/Documents as the index.html.en file.

2) Install Homebrew

Next, you need to install Homebrew. But to install Homebrew, you first need Git. If you have already installed Xcode in your system, you need not install Git. But if not, install it first.

After having Git in your system, go to Homebrew page and copy the command given for installation.

Run the command, and after Homebrew is installed, you can check its version.

3) Install PHP

You can choose to install a particular version of PHP, say, version 7.4. You can do so by typing the command

Now set the compilers to find PHP; do

Link the PHP version.

Now check the PHP version to confirm.

4) Changing the Work Directory

Get back to the login directory typing

Navigate to your home directory (it is named with your user name). In my case, it is dennisgabil

There, create a directory for your web projects, say Sites

For easy access later, you can place this newly created Sites directory in the Favorites section of your Mac's Finder. Do Spotlight Search (⌘ + SPACE) on your username and drag and drop Sites to the Finder sidebar.

5) Modifying httpd.conf

If you have installed Apache via Homebrew, navigate to /usr/local/etc/httpd.

Else, if you intend to use the pre-installed one, navigate to /etc/apache2

Create a backup of the httpd.conf file

We need to make some changes to the httpd.conf file. Open the file. To open it with vi editor, type

Find the line

Listen 80

and change it to

Listen 127.0.0.1:80

Few lines below, you will find a litany of LoadModule lines. Below them, add the line

LoadModule php7_module /usr/local/lib/httpd/modules/libphp7.so

Then few lines down, find the commented line

#ServerName www.example.com:80

and uncomment it and change it to

ServerName localhost

Next, find the below two lines

DocumentRoot "/Library/WebServer/Documents"
<Directory "/Library/WebServer/Documents">

and change them to

DocumentRoot "/Users/dennisgabil/Sites"
<Directory "/Users/dennisgabil/Sites">

(You change /dennisgabil/ in the two paths to your /username/ ). For inserting text in vi, press i. Save the changes (press ESC, then : (SHIFT + :), then wq!)

Lastly, add the below piece of code to the file.

Also, just so that an index.php file finds preference while loading your PHP projects, find the section

and insert index.php just before index.html

6) Code Signing

Now if your httpd.conf file is pre-installed (not installed via brew), it is possile that you get the error No code signing authority for module at /usr/local/lib/httpd/modules/libphp7.so specified in LoadModule directive..

To avoid that, just append your code signing certificate name to the very line in the httpd.conf file where the PHP shared file is being loaded.

If you do not have or do not know how to create a code signing certificate is macOS, go through the tutorial here.

7) Restart Apache

Now restart the server by running the command

Now all your web projects can go inside /Users/dennisgabil/Sites. If you have a web project called, say, myproj, inside that directory, you can access it by typing localhost/myproj in the URL bar of your browser and it will display your default index.html (or index.php, keeping in mind that we are learning PHP) file. If you have a Git repository for your project, you can clone it there and work.

Just for the purpose of testing, create an index.php page that displays Hello, World! inside the /Sites directory (do not forget to change /dennisgabil to your /username in the path)

Access //localhost. The page should display Hello, World!