Install LEMP on MacOS

Setup LEMP (Nginx, MySQL, multiple PHP) on MacOS. In the end, you’ll have a robust, clean and fast local web development environment on Mac’s M chip or Intel

Verified It’s working on MacOS Soloma

Software needs to install:

Xcode, Homebrew (required)
Multiple PHP version (required)
Xdebug (Optional - But highly recommend)
Nginx & SSL (Required)
MySQL (Optional)
Elasticsearch (Optional - But required for Magento 2)
Mailhog (Optional)
DNSMASQ (Optional)

Setup

Xcode, Homebrew

Before starting you need a few tools installed to take the stress out of the setup process You will be using the terminal a lot of coming up (I like WezTerm)

# install xcode
xcode-select-install

# install homebrew
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)"

Multiple PHP Version

Some PHP version deprecated on the default homebrew. Use tab shivammathur/php

brew tap shivammathur/php

# Install PHP Version
brew install shivammathur/php/php@7.4
brew install shivammathur/php/php@8.1
brew install shivammathur/php/php@8.2

By default, all PHP version are using port 9000. We need to change the port for each PHP version to avoid conflict. Path file: {bash} $(brew --prefix)/etc/<php_version>/php-fpm.d/www.conf

user = _www
user = <username>

group = _www
group = staff

listen = 127.0.0.1:9000
listen = 127.0.0.1:9074 # ex: for php7.4

If you want to change configure php from path {bash} $(brew --prefix)/etc/<php_version>/php.ini{bash} `

# backup php.ini

cp "$(brew --prefix)/etc/php/7.4/php.ini" "$(brew --prefix)/etc/php/7.4/php.ini.bak"

upload_max_file_size = 2M
upload_max_file_size = 10M

post_max_file_size = 2M
post_max_file_size = 10M

P/S: After you adjust configure PHP, You must restart php-fpm Once you are ready, starting up php-fpm for each version

brew services start php@7.4
brew services start php@8.1
brew services start php@8.2

Check that you have a configuration correctly

sudo lsof -i -n -P|grep php-fpm

Alias multiple PHP Version

alias php74 = "$(brew --prefix)/opt/php@7.4/bin/php"
alias php81 = "$(brew --prefix)/opt/php@8.1/bin/php"
alias php82 = "$(brew --prefix)/opt/php@8.2/bin/php"

Switch between multiple PHP Version

function phpv() {
  brew unlink php
  brew link --overwrite --force "php@$1"
  php -v
}

Xdebug

brew link --overwrite --force php@8.2 # Switch to PHP 8.2
pecl install xdebug

P/s: PHP 7.4 only support xdebug <= 3.1.6. You can check it on xdebug. To install, you must install specifically xdebug version

pecl install xdebug-3.1.6

Note: pecl no valiable: The root was caused by SSL certificates is invalid.. To install, we need to download & install package offline. View on StackOverflow

# Install xdebug v3.3.0
curl -k -O https://pecl.php.net/get/xdebug-3.3.0.tgz
pecl install --offline ./xdebug-3.3.0.tgz

Setup Xdebug for PHP

xdebug.mode=debug
xdebug.client_port=9003 # port xdebug by default is 9003
xdebug.discover_client_host = 1
xdebug.start_with_request=trigger
xdebug.idekey=PHPSTORM xdebug.remote_connect_back=1
xdebug.max_nesting_level=-1

Nginx

# Install nginx
brew install nginx

# Start nginx
sudo nginx

# check nginx is working (default nginx port is 8080)
curl http://localhost:8080

#user nobody;
user <your-username> staff;
# NEXT, ADD THE FOLLOWING TO THE http {} block
http {
  ...
  server_names_hash_bucket_size 512;
}

# UPDATE INSIDE server {} block
server {
  ...
  root <absolute_path>
  listen 80 default_server; # change port to 80
  server_name _;
}

# ADD FastCGI gateway to PHP-FPM
location ~ \.php$ {
  try_files $uri =404;
  fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9082; # use PHP 8.2
  fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME
  $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
  include fastcgi_params;
}

# ADD Some Basic Security Header

add_header X-Frame-Options "SAMEORIGIN";
add_header X-XSS-Protection "1; mode=block";
add_header X-Content-Type-Options "nosniff";

# SET Charset UTF-8
charset utf-8;

# ALLOW LARGE FILE UPLOAD
http {
  ...
  client_max_body_size 100M;
}

Reload nginx to apply the new config

sudo nginx -s reload

Go to http://localhost to see the result (if the port is different 80, it must be http://localhost:port) Check the PHP code can work on nginx

<?php echo phpinfo(); ?>

SSL

Install mkcert

brew install mkcert
brew install nss # if you use Firefox
mkdir "$(brew --prefix)/etc/nginx/ssl"
cd "$(brew --prefix)/etc/nginx/ssl"
mkcert -install
mkcert localhost

server {
  http2 on;
  listen 443 ssl;
  listen [::]:443 ssl;
  ssl_certificate /opt/homebrew/etc/nginx/ssl/localhost.pem;
  ssl_certificate_key /opt/homebrew/etc/nginx/ssl/localhost-key.pem;
  ssl_ciphers HIGH:!aNULL:!MD5;
}

Auto redirect HTTPS

server {
  return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
}

MySQL

brew install mysql
brew services start mysql

# mysql secure installation
mysql_secure_installation

# Default Homebrew MySQL server config
[mysqld]

# Only allow connections from localhost
bind-address = 127.0.0.1
mysqlx-bind-address = 127.0.0.1
innodb_buffer_pool_instances=8
innodb_buffer_pool_size=4G
innodb_buffer_pool_chunk_size=512M
max_allowed_packet=1024M
sort_buffer_size=256M
max_connections=1024
default_authentication_plugin=mysql_native_password
innodb_ft_min_token_size=2

# Add mode only if needed
sql_mode = "ERROR_FOR_DIVISION_BY_ZERO,NO_ENGINE_SUBSTITUTION"

# Set Default Charset
character-set-server=utf8
collation-server=utf8_general_ci

PHPMyadmin

brew install phpmyadmin

location /phpmyadmin {
  alias /opt/homebrew/share/phpmyadmin;
  index index.php index.html index.htm;
  location ~ \.php$ {
    fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
    fastcgi_read_timeout 300;
    fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9082;
    fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME
    $request_filename; include fastcgi_params;
  }
}

Go to https://localhost/phpmyadmin Or you can use another DB GUI such as Table Plus, DBeaver, Sequel Ace

Mailhog

brew install mailhog
brew services start mailhog

# start with
mailhog

Now, you can access MailHog at http://localhost:8025. Send a test email and check MailHog

echo "Test email from Postfix" | mail -s "Test Email" hi@example.com

Next, update each php.ini file with the following, if you have multiple versions of PHP, and then restart php-fpm. Note, test@localhost should be used but will be overridden by any PHP scripts that run

sendmail_path = /opt/homebrew/opt/mailhog/bin/MailHog sendmail test@localhost

ElasticSearch (Need to install Magento 2)

From Magento Version ≥ 2.4, It has changed MySQL search to Elasticsearch.

Install Elasticsearch & OpenJDK

brew tap elastic/tap
brew install elastic/tap/elasticsearch-full
brew install openjdk@17

Symlink OpenJDK so the system Java wrappers can find it. This information is also displayed as a Homebrew “caveat” after installing OpenJDK.

sudo ln -sfn /opt/homebrew/opt/openjdk@17/libexec/openjdk.jdk /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/openjdk.jdk

export ES_JAVA_HOME=/opt/homebrew/Cellar/openjdk@17/<openjdk-version>/libexec/openjdk.jdk/Contents/Home

<key>EnvironmentVariables</key>
<dict>
  <key>ES_JAVA_HOME</key>
  <string>/opt/homebrew/Cellar/openjdk@17/<openjdk-version>/libexec/openjdk.jdk/Contents/Home</string>
</dict>

Run & Test Elasticsearch

elasticsearch # option -d to run detach

curl -s http://localhost:9200

Troubleshooting

unable to install elasitcsearch: Change “plist_options :manual => “elasticsearch” to “@plist_manual = “elasticsearch” on /opt/homebrew/Library/Taps/elastic/homebrew-tap/Formula/elasticsearch-full.rb:68
elasticsearch fails to start: add **xpack.ml.enabled: false** to /opt/homebrew/etc/elasticsearch/elasticsearch.yml

DNSMASQ

To save yourself the fuss of editing your hosts file constantly you can use dnsmasq

brew install dnsmasq

echo 'address=/.test/127.0.0.1' > /opt/homebrew/etc/dnsmasq.conf  # add domain *.test to dnsmasq
sudo mkdir -v /etc/resolver
sudo bash -c 'echo "nameserver 127.0.0.1" > /etc/resolver/test'

Start or restart “dnsmasq” (Need to sudo)

sudo brew services start dnsmasq

Confirm “dnsmasq” is working with a ping TLDs, one at a time

ping -c 1 test.test