Magento. Truly the kitchen sink of open source shopping carts and e-commerce packages, and with enough features to shake a stick or spanner at, but like a kitchen sink, it can take a little specialist knowledge to install.
Attempting a localhost installation of Magento v1.3.2.4, using Godsend and development life-saver MAMP, I came across an issue unseen in previous versions, and although the issue is documented, it may be of some benefit to explain its work around in more detail, especially when in combination with MAMP
During installation Magento sets cookies, and many browsers will refuse to accept them when the installation is at the MAMP default URL, http://localhost.
As the Magento installation notes explain:
DNS resolution (important)
During the installation Magento will set cookies and most browsers will refuse to accept cookies for localhost. This can lead to several problems but no error messages. E.g. when trying to set the locale the page will just refresh and revert to the standard En-US locale. To avoid this problem create another entry for localhost in your /etc/hosts file and use that hostname to access the site:
127.0.0.1 locahost www.localhost.com
Aside from being unable to set location information during install, I had the more critical issue of being unable to log into the Admin page afterwards, both in Firefox and Safari—basically a complete show stopper.
The workaround is as suggested in the install documentation, but slightly adapted for MAMP.
Creating a new host in MAMP
1. Open the MAMP application
2. Navigate to the Hosts panel
3. Create a new entry for localhost:
Server Name: www.localhost.com
Disk location: /Applications/MAMP/htdocs (default MAMP site root)
Which has the effect of changing your Magento installation location:
Default MAMP installation URL: http://localhost/magento
New MAMP installation URL: http://www.localhost.com/magento
Your browser will now accept cookies, and critical access to the Magento Admin page will be restored.
Great Tips! I’m always looking for Magento Extensions and mods to improve Magento. Thnx!
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Yip, localhost entries will give all sorts of errors as well as redirection loops.
Thanks for the update
Ah, this is the missing guide! I am coming from the PC world and setting this up on my new mac is not easy. Thanks for the tips.
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I was suggested this website by my cousin. I’m not sure whether this post is written by him as no one else know such detailed about my problem. You are amazing! Thanks!
I’m amazing? Thanks for saying Kimberly. For some reason I’m struggling on this point at least to argue with what you’re saying!
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Thanks for the tips. I am new to Mac too.
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fantastic im moving from open cart to Magento so this should be a great help thanks
Great short post. I love MAMP and I’m so glad I switched from a Windows environment to a Mac environment for all my web work. There are A LOT more steps to go thru to get Magento to work with WAMP.
I you should mention though that people need to stay on top of the file permissions with MAMP Pro or you can end up with an error message that the server is misconfigured.
Good stuff btw. Oh and beautiful website design. Came here via google, first link. Nice ranking bro.
Thanks Mike, yes, you’re right, I should probably update this post at some point as MAMP itself is a fast-moving target. (Shudder) …using WAMP on Windows, no thanks!
A future update could also include how to get MAMP working together with a Windows install in a virtual machine, which is something of a must for a web developer working on a Mac.
Doesn’t seem very hard to do! Thanks for the post
Thanks for the tip. Not sure if this remains an issue, but I took went ahead and used my Mac’s local address, e.g. macintosh.local, and included the default 8888 MAMP port in the base URL and it seems to be doing just fine.