How to Install WordPress Locally on Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard

Most Mac developers and designers who use WordPress install a local version of it the first thing after they do an OS installation. With Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, people have encountered a number of difficulties while trying to install WordPress locally.

Here are the steps you can take to install a local copy of WordPress.

Step 1: Download the Mac version of MySQL from here.

Step 2: Now install the MySQL package. The preference pane can be installed by dragging MySQL.prefPane to /Library/PreferencePanes however it is not very helpful as there is a bug that prevents MySQL from being started with this.

Step 3: Manually start MySQL by typing this in one terminal window:

sudo /usr/LOCAL/mysql/bin/safe_mysqld

Step 4: Close the terminal window and open another one. Type in the following and restart MySQL each time by rebooting the system:

sudo mkdir /var/mysql/
sudo ln -s /tmp/mysql.sock /var/mysql/mysql.sock

Step 5: You will need to substitute your chosen MySQL root password for {ROOTPASS} and the Bonjour computer name (shown at the top of Sharing in System Preferences) for {HOST}.

$ mysql -u root
> DROP DATABASE test;
> DELETE FROM mysql.USER WHERE USER = '';
> FLUSH privileges;
> SET password FOR root@localhost = password('{ROOTPASS}');
> SET password FOR root@127.0.0.1 = password('{ROOTPASS}');
> SET password FOR 'root'@'{HOST}.local' = password('{ROOTPASS}');
> quit

Step 6: Now comes creating the WordPress MySQL database and user. {ROOTPASS} will be the same. In the following example, a database named wordpress is created and a username wpuser is granted privileges.

$ mysql -u root -p
Enter Password: {ROOTPASS}
> CREATE DATABASE wordpress;
> GRANT ALL privileges ON wordpress.* TO wpuser@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'foo';
> SET password FOR wpuser@localhost = old_password('wppass');
> quit

Step 7: Turning on PHP is fairly easy. Open the file /etc/apache2/httpd.conf.

Step 8: Remove the “#” from the following line # LoadModule php5_module and save the file.

Step 9: Finally you can install WordPress. Download and extract WordPress from here.

Step 10: Copy the extracted contents to your Sites folder under your user name.

Step 11: In the Sites folder, open wp-config-sample.php and save it as wp-config.php

Step 12: Change the following first lines of the document to point to your database.

define('DB_NAME', 'wordpress'); // The name OF the DATABASE
define('DB_USER', 'wpuser'); // Your MySQL username
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'wppass'); // …AND password
define('DB_HOST', 'localhost:/tmp/mysql.sock'); // 99% chance...

Step 13: Restart apache by typing this in the terminal:

sudo apachectl restart

Step 14: Commence installation by using your browser to navigate to your installation folder. Replace “user” with your username:

http://localhost/~USER/wp-admin/install.php

Step 15: People facing problems might have to update their virtual hosts with the following command: Again, replace “user” with your username:

sudo cp /etc/httpd/users/USER.conf /etc/apache2/users/USER.conf

Step 16: Restart apache once again with:

sudo apachectl restart