I used to use MAMP (or just a local Apache/PHP/MySQL stack) to work on web projects. I’ve since graduated to a live Ubuntu server which is much closer to the production environments for the sites I work on.
Now I’m trying to take this a step further to optimize my workflow. My goal is to have a Linux server running in VirtualBox that automounts a local folder share (from the host) and uses a symlink to gain access to the files (i.e. client:/var/www/dev is a symlink to host:/Users/charlie/dev/).
I don’t want to keep my files stored on the virtual server if it can be avoided. I prefer having direct local access to the files and not having to wait for buffering issues between the host and the client. i.e., if I have several files that are located on the client open in my IDE and I close my laptop, as soon as I open it there’s a bit of a buffer issue. My IDE has open project(s) that reference folders and files located on a network share that isn’t yet available. In the few seconds it takes for the virtual machine to wake up, OSX is already reporting that the share can’t be found and was disconnected, the IDE chokes up, etc.
So what am I asking? Well, is this safe / are there obvious pitfalls I’m not seeing / better ways to do this?
Edit: For anyone that stumbles upon this post, the final setup is a Linux virtual machine running in VirtualBox on a Mac with NFS and a symlink from my Apache web root to my mount.
I used NFS Manager (http://www.bresink.com/osx/NFSManager.html) to setup the NFS Server on my host computer with user mapping to my primary account. This ensures that when my VM mounts the NFS share it can do whatever it needs (reading, writing, modifying). Then I added this line to /etc/fstab on my VM to automount the share on boot: “123.456.89.1:/Users/charlie/nfs_share /mnt/nfs_share nfs” (where 123 is my host IP on the virtual NAT).
The result is a killer development environment where I can use Finder, Aptana (or whatever your editor of choice is) Photoshop, etc to work on files locally and simultaneously test them out in my “real” Apache/Lighttpd/MySQL/PHP environment!
I am using the exact same setup for accessing my documents folder between my Ubuntu host and the windows guest. Idem on my iMac. The only issues are when editing on the 2 platforms are the CR/LS, but that will be no issue on your setup.