MAMP 6.9 — Custom PHP Build Scripts

Build scripts and documentation for compiling PHP 8.2.x / 8.3.x / 8.4.x / 8.5.x / 8.6.x from source and installing into MAMP 6.9 on macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel).

MAMP PRO v6.9 no longer ships updated PHP packages — this fills the gap.

Files

File	Purpose
BUILD.md	Full step-by-step guide
build-php-mamp.sh	Configure PHP from source (run before make)
build-curl-mamp.sh	Rebuild libcurl against OpenSSL 3
build-mamp-ext.sh	Build all C deps + PECL extensions
package-mamp-php.sh	Package builds into dist/ tarballs with correct architecture suffix
php8.2.34-arm64.tar.gz	Pre-built PHP 8.2.34 for Apple Silicon
php8.3.35-arm64.tar.gz	Pre-built PHP 8.3.35 for Apple Silicon
php8.4.26-arm64.tar.gz	Pre-built PHP 8.4.26 for Apple Silicon
php8.5.11-arm64.tar.gz	Pre-built PHP 8.5.11 for Apple Silicon
php8.6.0RC3-arm64.tar.gz	Pre-built PHP 8.6.0RC3 for Apple Silicon, unpacking to php8.6.0/

Install directory naming

MAMP Pro enumerates PHP versions by matching the install path against ^/Applications/MAMP/bin/php/php[578]\.[0-9]\.[0-9]{1,2}/bin$ — the patch component must be digits only, with no suffix. Pre-releases therefore install under their numeric name: 8.6.0RC3 → php8.6.0. A directory named php8.6.0RC3 works from the command line but never appears in the MAMP Pro version list.

Newer archives already unpack into php8.6.0/. Older ones carry a php8.6.0RC3/ top-level directory. Renaming that directory alone is not sufficient — the prefix is baked into bin/php and bin/php-cgi, so the CLI would load no php.ini and extension_dir would point at a missing path. See the fix-up recipe in BUILD.md; rebuilding with the current scripts avoids the problem entirely.

Pre-built archive naming

Archives are arch-suffixed — binaries are not portable across architectures:

Suffix	Runs on
-arm64	Apple Silicon (native)
-x86_64	Intel (native); Apple Silicon via Rosetta 2

Intel archives must be built separately on an Intel Mac using the same scripts (arch auto-detected via uname -m).

Quick start

# 1. Build OpenSSL 3 into MAMP Library (see BUILD.md Step 0)

# 2. Rebuild libcurl against OpenSSL 3
bash build-curl-mamp.sh

# 3. Download PHP source, then configure + make
BUILD="/tmp/php-build-${USER:-mamp}"
mkdir -p "$BUILD"
curl -LO https://www.php.net/distributions/php-8.3.35.tar.gz
tar xzf php-8.3.35.tar.gz -C "$BUILD"
bash build-php-mamp.sh 8.3.35
cd "$BUILD/php-8.3.35" && make -j$(sysctl -n hw.ncpu) && make install

# 4. Build extensions (these are automatically signed ad-hoc on macOS)
bash build-mamp-ext.sh all

# 5. Create conf files (automatically registers config and PECL extensions)
python3 configure-mamp-ini.py

See BUILD.md for the complete guide including prerequisites, ICU Makefile fix, OpenSSL dylib hiding, conf file generation, macOS code-signing, and all known gotchas.

Requirements

• macOS 12+ (Apple Silicon or Intel)
• Xcode Command Line Tools
• MAMP 6.9 installed at /Applications/MAMP
• MacPorts (recommended package manager and best basis for building — also supplies modern config.sub for libmcrypt)

  sudo port install pkgconfig autoconf automake libtool openssl3 libxml2 curl zlib bzip2 libiconv pcre2 libjpeg-turbo libpng freetype webp icu libsodium libmcrypt oniguruma5 libzip

Build environment

Minimum OS: macOS 12.0 (Monterey) — every artifact targets MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=12.0, so they run on macOS 12 and newer. Verified with otool -l: minos 12.0 on bin/php, bin/php-cgi and every bundled .so. The sdk component is higher (27.0 on the current host) — that is the SDK used to compile, not the minimum required runtime.

Host everything in this repo was built and is running on:

Item	Value
macOS	27.0.1 (build 26A434)
Darwin kernel	27.0.0
Architecture	arm64 (Apple Silicon)
SDK	27.0
Deployment target	12.0
MAMP	6.9 at /Applications/MAMP

Override the target when building for an older floor, e.g. MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=13.0 bash build-php-mamp.sh 8.5.11 — all four scripts read it, defaulting to 12.0.

x86_64 artifacts are not built on this host — they require a separate Intel Mac (or a Rosetta 2 shell) running the same scripts. They carry the same minos 12.0.

Tested

PHP	Extensions	Runs on
8.2.34	apcu, igbinary, imagick, mcrypt, memcached, oauth, redis, ssh2, tidy, uploadprogress, xdebug, yaml, opcache, pgsql, pdo_pgsql, sysvsem, sysvshm, sysvmsg, shmop	macOS 12.0+ (arm64 & x86_64)
8.3.35	same as above	macOS 12.0+ (arm64 & x86_64)
8.4.26	same as above	macOS 12.0+ (arm64 & x86_64)
8.5.11	same as above (opcache static/built-in; xdebug 3.5.1, oauth 2.0.10, memcached 3.4.0)	macOS 12.0+ (arm64 & x86_64)
8.6.0RC3	supported via build-php-mamp.sh 8.6.0RC3 & build-mamp-ext.sh ext86	macOS 12.0+ (arm64 & x86_64)

Extensions marked as "disabled by default": mcrypt, ssh2, uploadprogress, yaml, sysvsem, sysvshm, sysvmsg, shmop — present as .so files, commented out in php.ini / php.ini.temp. Enable manually when needed.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.