Installing BuddyPress Locally on a Mac
July 3, 2009 in How To, Screencasts
I’ve recently noticed some posts on the BuddyPress forums where people are having problems getting WordPress MU and BuddyPress running locally on their machine.
I spent some time today to put together a twenty minute video that will show you how to set up and run WordPress MU and BuddyPress locally on a Mac. There is a tool you can use that will make this very easy called MAMP. For those of you running Windows, there is a similar tool called WAMP that will basically do the same thing.
I also make use of Textmate in this screen cast to edit the hosts file, if you don’t use it you can simply open the Finder, use the “Go” menu, and then the “Go to folder” option. Enter /etc/ as the folder and then scroll to the “hosts” file and use the editor of your choice. If you are familiar with the terminal you can also use your command line editor of choice.
I highly recommend you turn on the HD option for this video and make it full screen, that way you’ll easily be able to read and follow along.
Walter24 said on July 3, 2009
Cool! Thanks Andy
bedava sitem said on July 3, 2009
thanks super.
David Lewis said on July 3, 2009
VirtualHost X is a nice tool that will edit your host file and apache config files for you to set up virtual hosting. It’s not hard to do with a text editor… but VirtualHost X makes it idiot proof.
Also I believe MAMP is a paid product. XXAMP is free and does the same thing.
If you want to set up your own environment, that’s not that hard either. All you have to do is uncomment one line in the Apache httpd.config file to enable PHP and then install MySQL and download Sequel Pro.
One note of caution. Without going into all the gory details… if you want to set up your own environment (i.e. without MAMP or XXAMP) and are on a 64bit Mac… it’s much easier to use Sequel Pro for database management than PHPMyAdmin. PHPMyAdmin does not like the built-in build of PHP on Leopard. It will complain about a missing module. And the Entropy distribution of PHP will just open up a whole other can of worms. Bottom line… forget PHPMyAdmin and just use Sequel Pro.
Andy Peatling said on July 3, 2009
@David Lewis: The basic version of MAMP is free.
John James Jacoby said on July 3, 2009
I use WAMP, NetBeans 6.7, and XDebug on Vista 64 with no issues, and it’s setup in a similar fashion.
NCB said on July 3, 2009
Thanks! This was very helpful
Joshasbury said on July 3, 2009
Thanks for sharing, Andy! This will save me a ton of time as I setup my development environment.
David Lewis said on July 3, 2009
Ah. Cool
riskiii said on July 3, 2009
The video makes it so much easier. I don’t know why I didn’t think of the /etc/hosts file. Another good server is the Zend Server Community Edition, it is free as well. It works the same on all platforms. I look forward to digging into buddypress!!!
Elio said on July 3, 2009
Talking about WAMP, I have written a tutorial describing the installation steps of BuddyPress using WAMP on Windows. You can read it at
http://www.ilovecolors.com.ar/starting-with-buddypress-wordpress-mu/
Vachi said on July 4, 2009
great screen cast andy,
one thing it took me few mins to find out,
in textmate to have the ability of using mate as a bash command you have to activate it
its done by
go to textmate>help>terminal usage> than create link
now you will be able to use mate in terminal like andy did in the video
thanks again, and question >> i remember you did like a svn install presentation at wordcamp last year, can you put up that cast, or make a video, i think it would be very helpful to everyone
thanks again
derry said on July 6, 2009
When I setup my localhost.localdomain in etc/hosts and go to browser. It always adds www. in front of localhost.localdomain and cannot find the files? Any ideas why? I followed your guide like an apostle. Thanks! And thanks for the great vid!
Flynn said on July 6, 2009
URLs used in the video (highlight and drag into terminal for ease of use)
WMPU: svn co http://svn.automattic.com/wordpress-mu/branches/2.7 wpmu
BuddyPress: svn co http://svn.buddypress.org/branches/1.0 buddypress
TextMate commands for domain:
Open TextMate: mate /etc/hosts
Save some typing time
blinovitch said on July 8, 2009
Ha! I just spent two days tinkering on and off to do this the hard way. I’ll keep this in mind for the next time I have to do a local installation.
Craig Cummings said on July 9, 2009
Looking forward to (attemepting) to wrap my head around WordPress MU and Buddypress.
Great job al!
donnacha | WordSkill said on July 10, 2009
Very useful, thanks Andy.
Vik said on July 15, 2009
Everthing works great up until activating BuddyPress. When I activate BuddyPress sitewide, I get a blank screen. Attempting to reload http://localhost.localdomain/wpmu/wp-admin/ after that, I also get a blank screen. What could be causing this?
Bruce said on July 18, 2009
Sorry for being really really dumb but i can not find the hosts file???? can anyone help? has the new update changed the name of that file?
Bruce said on July 25, 2009
managed to find it in the end… thanks for the help
priscila said on August 11, 2009
When I open the hosts file… it’s an empty file… there’s nothing written in the file. Is that right? Does anyone can help me? What should I write in the file? Thanks. Priscila
priscila said on August 11, 2009
Also when I try to write the same information from the video hosts file, the system don’t let me save it.
Ricky said on September 2, 2009
Andy,
I’m glad you understand that some of us (me) are visual learners. This was the easiest tutorial I have ever used. Great work!!!
Andy Peatling said on September 2, 2009
Ricky, glad you liked it.
Imran | IT Buzz said on September 4, 2009
Thanks a lot Andy i was looking for this installation guide from many days. At last found it here. Keep up the good work.
Denis said on September 10, 2009
This is great but got stuck when setting the port to “default Apache and MySQL ports.” For some reason the Apache light goes form green to red. The light goes back to green when I “Reset to MAMP ports.”
Any helpful ideas anyone?
Thanks
CT said on October 5, 2009
When I open the hosts file… it’s an empty file… there’s nothing written in the file. Is that right? Does anyone can help me? What should I write in the file? Thanks. Priscila
Andy Peatling said on October 6, 2009
If the hosts file is empty you probably have the wrong file.
Alice Ralph said on November 6, 2009
Andy fantastic video!! This answered almost all of the problems I was having (installing Buddypress on MAMP on a Macbook Pro!) The only thing I had a problem was changing the localhost to localhost.localdomain – it stopped Apache working. I had to go to System Prefs > Sharing > and turn off Web Sharing. Restarted MAMP and all worked perfectly.
You are my hero, thanks!
Todd said on December 31, 2009
I’m on tiger and I have to set up using Netinfo Manager but i am very confused on how to properly set it up. I found the file I need to edit but I’m not sure how to manage it for WordPress MU
Any help would be wonderful.
Alan said on February 27, 2010
The current version of MAMP is way different now, I got it up and working really easily but I never saw anything at all about sub domains. I’ve also never seen that built in wordpress wp-config.php file editor, how did you get that?
Brian Bowman said on October 18, 2010
Hey Andy,
Nice presentation; however, at this point – a bit dated. Any chance you can get this updated using latest WordPress 3.0.1 AND showing how to do this using subdomains. I’ve already got a hosted site using WP 3.0.1 + multiuser (subdomain option) + Buddypress and I”m trying to get it loaded to a local server so I can work with the WP files using Dreamweaver CS5 for dynamic live code view, etc. Much thanks and great efforts.
Brian