Mac OS-X comes with a version the Apache web server that is configured to allow users of the system to publish their own web pages directly from the Sites directory in their home folder. This is of limited use for the average user but is just great for web developers who can test their work directly, using a real web server. However, there is a glitch: if you upgrade from OS-X Tiger (10.4) to Leopard (10.5), existing users will suddenly get an HTTP error 403 Forbidden when navigating to their web pages. This is because in Leopard, Apache's security is tightened by default.
Apple provide an article that describes how to re-enable access for those users. However, their version will still deny access to sub-directories. So I slightly adapted the shortname.conf file to make it more flexible. Here is my version:
<Directory "/Users/shortname/Sites/*"> Options Indexes MultiViews AllowOverride FileInfo Order allow,deny Allow from all </Directory>
The star (*) at the end of the directory name on the first line ensures that the rule applies not only to the ~/Sites directory but also all sub-directories. The FileInfo value for the AllowOverride option on the third line tells Apache to allow settings override in a .htaccess file in that directory or any sub-directory thus allowing much finer grained control.
After getting this to work, it appears that, although PHP5 is installed, it is not enabled in Leopard's Apache installation. Enabling it is very easy and very well explained at Foundation PHP.
There you go: a full blown web server with PHP support is just what you need to locally test drive you beautiful web creations and you don't even have to install any extra software.
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