To kick things off, head on over to MAMP's web site http://www.mamp.info/en/index.html, on the home page you will see a download link for MAMP and MAMP pro, MAMP pro is the paid version, and has added functionality, in this tutorial we are going to download and use the free version, click the Download now button and wait for your download to complete.
Once the download has finished double click the zip file and then double click the mamp.pkg icon that was just unzipped.
Follow the instructions on the MAMP installer, and you should see the screen below, congratulations you have just installed MAMP.
To begin using MAMP, go to your Mac's applications folder. There you will see two folders one for MAMP and one for MAMP Pro, open up the MAMP folder.
Inside you will see a folder called “htdocs” you can drag this to the “places” sidebar, this will help you to quickly move files to your MAMP instillation without going through layers of folders to get there.
Next click on the MAMP icon and your Apache and MySql servers should then spring into action.
While your servers are starting your browser will now open up on its own and show you the MAMP start page, now pat yourself on the back, MAMP is fully installed and working!
Installing Concrete5
Now we know your server is up and running, we want to get Concrete5 installed, before we head off to concrete5.org, we are going to create a database for Concrete5 to work from. On the MAMP start screen you will have noticed some buttons along the top of the screen.
Click on phpMyAdmin, and you will see the screen below.
Next we need to give our database a name, in the text field underneath “Create new database” enter the name of your database, I have called mine concrete5DB. After that click create and you will receive a message telling you the database has been successfully created
Thats all we need MAMP for just now, we will come back to it later to discuss security.
Now we need to head on over to concrete5.org, at the top of the page click on the download link, you will see there is a “Latest” release and a “Latest stable release” (At time of writing) the latest release may still have a few outstanding bugs, but the latest stable release is the fully tested most stable version, decide which version you want and click the download link. We are going to use the latest release as it has a much updated user interface.
Once you have downloaded Concrete5 double click the zip file, once the folder has been extracted, drop it into the “htdocs” folder you moved under “places” earlier.
Next open up your web browser and type in localhost:8888 into the address bar, you will then see the parent directory of your MAMP instillation, and the folder you just placed there.
Click on the folder name of your Concrete5 instillation, you will then see your instillation's check list, if your using the latest version of MAMP, all tests should pass ok. Then click continue to instillation.
Fill in all your personal details, and choose a strong password to secure your site, I would suggest using a mixture of random letters and numbers, making it hard for anyone to guess.
Database details and security
On the other side of the form is where you place all your database details, the server name should be localhost , and the database name will be the name you created earlier, in this case Concrete5DB.
The MySQL Username: and MySQL Password: can be filled in by using the term “root” for both fields, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD THESE FIELDS BE FILLED IN LIKE THIS ON A LIVE SERVER, I cannot stress that enough, this will leave your instillation and your server open to abuse.
To create a new username and password go back to your MAMP start screen, click phpMyAdmin and click on the name of your database on the left side of the screen, then, click on the “privileges” tab, click on the add new user link and fill in your details, avoid using your own name as a user name, then pick “Local” from the host menu, then click "generate" you will will then be given an obscure safer password to use, click “go” to save your new user.
Now you can enter the details into your Concrete5 instillation screen. Decide if you want some sample content in your site or an empty site to start with, and click “Install Concrete5”.
After concrete5 has run through its instillation, you will see the following screen.
Well done, you have now downloaded and installed MAMP, set up a more secure Mysql password and username, and downloaded and installed Concrete5 on your your shiny new local server test environment.