Intranet
Today I wanted so setup the intranet server. On our intranet we use a couple of web-applications, which require a MySQL database, Apache and PHP. Sometimes I also use it too develop and test new sites and applications, so it should also support Java-applications and Ruby On Rails, but that can wait.

Previously I have been using the MAMP package to setup a MySQL, Apache, PHP environment on my Mac, so that’s what I used as well for the new server and after I had transferred the SQL data to the new database, everything was working, basically again within minutes. But then I had to realize, that MAMP is not really suited as solution for a server, because you have to start it as user who is logged in. So I had to start all over again but it is not that difficult to install and configure the components by hand either.

Server software
Apache is already installed and configured. You can start it with the sharing control panel. MySQL can be downloaded for Mac OS X from the official site and includes a control panel, where you can specify, that the database server should start automatically. For PHP I chose the PHP 5 installer provided by Marc Liyanage. I adjusted the default Apache settings (as usual in /etc/httpd/httpd.conf) by hand, which is not a problem since I have been working with Apache for many years. Getting one of the web-applications to work was a bit difficult, since it was written for PHP 4 and expected certain settings in php.ini, which were not set in the default installation. Once Apache and PHP were configured I was able to use phpMyAdmin to create the databases again and everything was working again.
For our LinkTheater network media player I installed the official LinkTheater server software as well as the AVeL Link Server, which works as well with the LinkTheater. Both of these were working but disappointing, since the Windows versions have a user interface with settings and some extra functions. But both applications become interesting, when you examine the software package, because they are pure Java applications. Maybe they can be customized and extended.

The only service left on the old server now, is the mail server with postfix, procmail, imap and fetchmail. I have also been looking at Webmin, which I usually used on the Linux server to administer and configure it. Webmin should run on Mac OS X but the installation seems complicated and I haven’t had time to try it yet.

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