Apache Serving 403 Forbidden after OS X Snow Leopard Upgrade to Version 10.6.6

Question

I've just upgraded my MacBook Pro to OS X Snow Leopard version 10.6.6 and now Apache is misbehaving:

• requests to http://localhost/ generate a 403 Forbidden response -- FIXED
• requests to any of my virtual hosts seem to generate a 200 Ok response, but contain zero bytes

Some further info that might be useful:

• I'm using the Apache that comes bundled with OS X.
• I'm using PHP from http://www.entropy.ch/software/macosx/php/ (which is in /usr/local/bin)

I've had look at the Apache error log and the only error seems to be the following:

[notice] child pid 744 exit signal Segmentation fault (11)

I'm completely stumped by this. Any help would be much appreciated.

UPDATE Ok, I've managed to resolve the 403 Forbidden error thanks to http://techtrouts.com/mac-os-x-105-web-sharing-forbidden-403-on-httplocalhostusername/

I'm still having the second problem though for any request e.g. this now happens when I request http://localhost

FURTHER UPDATE Changing the Apache config files to use the version of PHP 5.3 that comes with Snow Leopard gets rid of the error. However that's not ideal for me as I need to use PHP 5.2 (as I've got some Drupal 6 sites to work on that break when using PHP 5.3).

FURTHER FURTHER UPDATE Although this didn't actually get resolved it is no longer an issue for me (I'm no longer tied to using PHP 5.2).

Answer 1

I'd recommend using macports instead of the OS X builtins. You can relatively easily install whatever versions of software you want, and you don't have to worry about OS X updates breaking your sites.

After you install macports run:

sudo port sync

To install php5.2 with apache2 and mysql5 you'd run:

sudo port install php52 +apache2 +mysql5

port variants php52 will show you what other options you have.