From what i can tell i am an oddity among CF-Mac developers.  I
actually install Apache and hook up the connector to cf to ease my
development.  The very first time i set up apache2 on my mac I
used some packages that barneyb turned me onto.  I dont think i
had any problems with them, but I didnt look for them when I did my
next install.

I am pretty sure I could compile from source and do an install. 
But I dont like doing that because I dont like that I dont know where
everything goes when run "make install".  This tends to be the
case when I do those types of installs.

Not to mis-lead you all, I have found a solution that makes me
happy.  And it does include compiling :)  What i have found
is Darwinports. 
Darwinports is a site that includes most of your favorite *nix flavor
treats as ports for OS X.  What it does is act like yum and
apt-get for fedora linux and debian.  From the command line you
can run ‘port install {package-name}’ and it will check to see what
dependancies are needed, download the source and compile it for your
machine.

So you might be asking how is this better than just compiling it
myself?  Well for one, i dont have to actually go find the
source.  I usually check the web site to see if they have what i
am looking for first and then just install.  Two, I can also
uninstall and update the installation using the port command. 
Three,  all the packages install in /opt/local which makes it very
nice for managing things.

What else can you install with darwinports?  Well apache obviously
but also subversion, tomcat and any number of other unix
favorites. 

Last but not least I will give you the short version of how to get Darwin ports installed.  From the http://darwinports.org/getdp/
website you have your choice of a  tar.bz2 or tar.gz
download.  This will get you the source code for
darwinports.  extract this to any location you choose (you wont
need it for long ) and then navigate to that folder via that command
line. I use a terminal app called Iterm
but you can just user Terminal from the Applications/Utilities folder.
The readme in this folder includes these directions, but I will happily
repeat the steps here.  From the folder you created by extracting
the archive you downloaded earlier:

./configure && make && sudo make install

This will run through a system check, compile the source and then move the compiled binaries to their final resting place. :)

Thats all it takes to get the base installed.  But if you want to
be able to run the port command withougt always having to use the full
path, we need one more step.  If you are familiar with the command
line you my have already modified your .profile file.  If this is
your first forray then you will need to create one.  At any rate
the .profile file will need to go in your home directory.  As you
can tell because the first character is a "." it will not normally be
visible.  I choose to use emacs for my editing tasks most days I
am in terminal so

emacs ~/.profile

will open the file (create a buffer if the file doesnt exist).  You then want to add this line to the file

export PATH=/opt/local/bin:$PATH

To
save and exit emacs use the key combination ctrl+x followed by ctrl+c.
Thats control not command! :)  Press Y to confirm the save and you
are done.

Now that we have the file created we need our session to re-read that so from the command line press

. ~/.profile

And the last step before you can install apache is to download the port description files by running

port sync

And once that has completed you can install apache by running

sudo port install apache2

Wait
for it to run through its process.  It will install to
/opt/local/apache2.  You will need to set up your
httpd.conf.  this tends to be a personal and varried
process.  i typically set up virtualhosts and not much else. 
Please feel free to do what you like here.

Well thats about all I have for you now.  Love to hear any
comments on how others do or if you benifited from the info on my
setup.  Please feel free to comment :)

Next up…. JRUN and CFMX 7.