title: Cannot install Wordpress locally on OS X without MAMP
body: <p>I'm following the excellent tutorials first <a href="https://mallinson.ca/osx-web-development/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here</a> then <a href="https://www.davidgagne.net/2017/01/23/the-ultimate-guide-to-local-wordpress-development-on-a-mac/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here</a>. I think I succeeded with most of the steps because I get the Apache "It works" when pointing the browser to <code>http://localhost</code>. </p>
  
  <p>I made the modifications in the files <code>/private/etc/apache2/httpd.conf</code> and <code>/private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf</code> as advised in the tutorials (basically telling Apache to use <code>libphp7.so</code> and not to deny access to the file system).</p>
  
  <p>My <code>httpd-vhosts.conf</code> looks like this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;Directory "/www"&gt;
    Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride All
    Require all granted
  &lt;/Directory&gt;
  
  &lt;Virtualhost *:80&gt;
    VirtualDocumentRoot "/www/sites/%1/wwwroot"
    ServerName sites.test
    ServerAlias *.test
    UseCanonicalName Off
  &lt;/Virtualhost&gt;
  
  &lt;Virtualhost *:80&gt;
    VirtualDocumentRoot "/www/sites/%-7+/wwwroot"
    ServerName xip
    ServerAlias *.xip.io
    UseCanonicalName Off
  &lt;/Virtualhost&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I have a <code>www</code> directory at the top <code>/</code> level:</p>
  
  <pre><code>/www
  ├── home
  └── sites
      ├── client1
      │   ├── assets
      │   └── wwwroot
      │       └── index.html
      ├── wordpress
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>When I type <code>client1.test</code> in the browser address bar, it displays the content of <code>index.html</code> correctly.</p>
  
  <p>So the next step was to create a subdirectory <code>wordpress</code> within <code>sites</code> and download and unzip the latest wp version into this directory.</p>
  
  <p>In the <a href="https://www.davidgagne.net/2017/01/23/the-ultimate-guide-to-local-wordpress-development-on-a-mac/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">2nd tutorial</a>, it says "At this point you should be able to hit wordpress.test in your browser and start the WordPress installation process."</p>
  
  <p>Well that doesn't work for me: I get "404 Not Found" message. My permissions look as follows:</p>
  
  <pre><code>drwxr-xrwx    5 root      wheel     160 Jun 19 12:39 client1
  drwxrwxrwx   23 _www      wheel     736 Jun 19 15:34 wordpress
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I noted that unlike the <code>client1</code> subdirectory, <code>wordpress</code> doesn't contain the <code>wwwroot</code> subdirectory. But I guess this isn't important here? I was expecting some installation steps to begin when entering <code>wordpress.test</code>.</p>
  
  <p>Would anyone know possible reasons why I'm getting the 404 message? I'm on High Sierra 10.13.5.</p>