Leopard: Install Local Wordpress using MAMP

Contributor Icon Contributed by David Kirk     
Tag Icon Tagged: Mac OS X Leopard  

Installing a local version of wordpress is very easy using MAMP. In fact, the configuration and installation is quicker than downloading the packages. Let’s get started…


Previously I have described how to manually install wordpress and mysql locally on a leopard box. With a failed step or two, the manual installation can be ugly very quickly. MightQ suggested MAMP.

MAMP + WP on leopard is less graceful but much, much easier.

1. Download MAMP
2. While you are installing MAMP, Download WP
3. Mount the MAMP dmg and drag the folder into your applications directory. No not use a subdirectory.
4. You can turn on the mysql and apache servers through installing the widget into your dashboard or by clicking the MAMP application. Start the servers now.

5. Click the Open start page button
6. The Welcome to MAMP page should open. You should record your mysql information that will look similar to this…


To connect to the MySQL Server from your own scripts use the following connection parameters:

Host: localhost
[Port: 8889]
User: root
Password: root

7. Click the phpMyAdmin link at the top of that page.

8. In phpMyAdmin Create new database named “wordpress” (or whatever) and hit the Create button

9. Uncompress and place your downloaded wordpress installation and in a subfolder of your htdocs folder in the MAMP install. In the example below I used a folder named techrx. I will assume that you will use the name “blog” for the purposes of this tutorial.

10. In your wp install, right-click (ctrl-click) on the wp-config-sample.php file and open it in textedit (or your favorite editor of choice)
11. Change the config file to match your mysql settings above. If you named your database something other than wordpress, then use that name instead.

// ** MySQL settings ** //
define('DB_NAME', 'wordpress'); // The name of the database
define('DB_USER', 'root'); // Your MySQL username
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'root'); // ﾉand password
define('DB_HOST', 'localhost:8889'); //

12. Important to save this file to a new file named wp-config.php

13. Point your browser to http://localhost:8888/blog to start the initiation of your wp install.

(If you placed wp in a different directory, you would replace blog with the name you picked. I used techrx, for example.)

14. Record your temp admin password to log into your install. Change this login password to something easy to remember once you login.

15. Now when you visit http://localhost:8888/blog it should be pointed to your local wp installation.

 

29 Comments -


  1. Alex Miles Younger said on October 18, 2008

    Thanks so much for this guide. It’s simple, quick, and totally effective. I really appreciate your help and how easy MAMP makes this whole process.

  2. davak said on October 19, 2008

    My pleasure. I use MAMP on my MBP everyday. I love it.

  3. chitiore said on November 11, 2008

    Thanks for the guide. I followed it and I achieve my goal!!

  4. davak said on November 12, 2008

    Woo-hoo. Enjoy your wordpress installation!

  5. Magda Diaz said on December 13, 2008

    This was helpful but didn’t work exactly this way on MAC OS 10.5

    Instead I moved the Blog/Wordpress install to my “Sites” directory rather than HTDOCS and then simply pointed my browser to http://localhost/blog.

    Then it worked perfectly.

  6. Ed said on January 1, 2009

    you just saved me. i was having a problem figuring out were to take care of the database creation. i was always getting an database error.
    It works now. Thanks :)

  7. sebastian said on January 10, 2009

    what about getting the mail function to work when using mamp. when i test for a new user to register it sayssending email but never sends it. how do i fix this?

  8. jdreng said on February 12, 2009

    Great guide! :)

    Just what I needed. Thanks.

  9. Hank Paulson said on February 22, 2009

    Fantastic. Up and running in a few minutes, thanks for posting this great resource.

  10. casey said on March 20, 2009

    thanks for this – up and running in just a few minutes – worked perfectly.

  11. iSnake said on April 10, 2009

    Thank you mate. It is time to build my first web site now :)

  12. Morris said on June 20, 2009

    Great guide – better than that on the Wordpress site. Thanks a lot!

  13. Anonymous said on July 15, 2009

    I have never done this before – but it was easy to understand and to follow – well done!
    Thanks!

  14. jeroen said on August 17, 2009

    MAMP install and dbasecreation no problem. But can’t make a connection with wordpress. Either in htdocs or sites dir. http://localhost/wordpress says it exists but can’m make connection. Localhost:8888 makes no dif. Using OSX 10.5.8 Any suggestions?

  15. Hayden said on September 9, 2009

    Quality article, MAMP works like a charm. Thanks.

  16. David Patrick said on September 10, 2009

    Good job with the tutorial. After installing Joomla on MAMP, I thought wordpress would be just as easy. It was, but just a tad different.

  17. Anonymous said on October 5, 2009

    Bang on!!!

    I scratched my brain for an hour looking at the config.sys file. I tried everything and nothing. I have had issues before with non-root usernames etc. But your post and copy and paste and Im past all that and on the road forward.

  18. cmode said on November 16, 2009

    I just read this tutorial and these are better instructions than what’s on wordpress. however, I already installed mamp and wp using those instructions and now that I view my blog, its only viewable when I go to http://localhost:8888/ and not
    http://localhost:8888/nameofmyblog

    what did I do wrong in the setup?

  19. José Patricio Espinoza said on December 3, 2009

    perfect!

    tnxz!!!!

  20. Ana said on December 14, 2009

    Thank you! This worked perfectly.

  21. Ratstudios said on July 1, 2010

    Any body got a guide fore MAMP PRO 1.9 to get it running on OSX Server 10.5.8?
    “on port 80…”
    :)

  22. Arto said on July 21, 2010

    Thank you for this post! Works great!

  23. Galen Gidman said on August 20, 2010

    Nice article. I’m not sure what version of WordPress was out when this was written, but now you can just hit the install in your directory, and enter the database information during the install. Great stuff!

  24. Patrick Berkeley said on April 7, 2011

    Very helpful. Thank you! :)

  25. David Kirk - Founder/Editor said on April 7, 2011

    Sweet!

  26. jamesmage said on April 19, 2011

    How do you point a browser I don’t get it after step 12

  27. Gurdanthomas said on May 12, 2011

    Hi – I feel like I’m the only one it doesn’t work for – tried all the steps – even @d37e09bf8757ac9bc664144a5931b01b:disqus alternative (putting the folder in sites)- either it can’t make a connection or

    The requested URL /website was not found on this server.

    Apache/2.0.64 (Unix) PHP/5.3.5 DAV/2 Server at localhost Port 80OS is 10.5.7 any suggestions?Cheers

  28. Gurdanthomas said on May 12, 2011

    I think you copy the code and then paste it into your address bar on your internet browser (the place where you would type internet addresses – http://www.myspace etc) – of course I may be wrong – because it’s nbot working for me :)

  29. mb said on August 16, 2011

    hi! did you ever figure out your connection problem? i’ve also run into this problem of the server not being found. it worked for a little while, then suddenly the server can’t be found. i’ve searched many forums and tried many solutions to no avail. any help would be greatly appreciated ;)
    MAMP 2.0.1; OS 10.5.8

 

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