Get Localhost running on Big Sur

Well, there is a quick way to startup a localhost server, but does not address the Big Sur configuration challenges with Apache. In the Terminal, change to your Sites folder, and launch Python as shown in this link. That will tie up the Terminal window with the running HTTP server. Type control-C to quit the Python HTTP server.

In your browser, enter http://localhost:nnnn to see the default index.html file in Sites or http://localhost:nnnn/foo.html where foo is your choice of HTML content.

I don't happen to have current Apache configuration information for Big Sur handy.

The changed config files are moved into /Users/Shared/Relocated Items/

You can review them to see what was changed in the ones you had configured and fix the new ones.

Primarily, you need to enable mod_userdir around line 184 and the user home directories at about line 521.

Your user.conf files should still exist in /etc/apache2/users directory.

If you actually modified httpd-userdir.conf, see if there is a copy in Relocated Items and adjust the new one as appropriate.

# Install macOS Command Line Tools
xcode-select --install

echo 'ZSH_DISABLE_COMPFIX="true"' >> ~/.zshenv

# Install Homebrew
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)"
# Symlink in root directories rather than home directories
echo 'HOMEBREW_CASK_OPTS="--appdir=/Applications --fontdir=/Library/Fonts"' >> ~/.zshenv

# Cleanup Homebrew installation
brew doctor

# Disable macOS installation of Apache
sudo apachectl stop
sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.apache.httpd.plist 2>/dev/null

# Install Apache with Homebrew
brew install httpd
brew services start httpd

# Check that Apache is running properly
# open http://localhost:8080

# Set localhost to listen for port 80
sed -i '' 's/Listen 8080/Listen 80/g' httpd.conf

# Set DocumentRoot location to the newly created Sites folder in your user directory
sed -i '' 's|DocumentRoot \"\/usr\/local\/var\/www\"|DocumentRoot \"'$HOME'\/Sites\"|g' httpd.conf
sed -i '' 's|Directory \"\/usr\/local\/var\/www\"|Directory \"'$HOME'\/Sites\"|g' httpd.conf

# Adjust AllowOverride to All instead of None
sed -i '' 's/AllowOverride None/AllowOverride All/g' httpd.conf

# Uncomment mod_rewrite module
sed -i '' '/mod_rewrite/s/^#//g' httpd.conf

# Set user permissions to current user and group
sed -i '' 's/User _www/User '$USER'/g' httpd.conf
sed -i '' 's/Group _www/Group staff/g' httpd.conf

# Set servername to make Apache happy
sed -i '' 's/\#ServerName www\.example\.com\:8080/ServerName localhost/g' httpd.conf

# Create DocumentRoot folder and a test page
mkdir $HOME/Sites
echo "<h1>My User Web Root</h1>" > $HOME/Sites/index.html

# Restart Apache
brew services restart httpd

# Check that everything is still working properly
# open http://localhost

# Install PHP 8.0.1
brew tap shivammathur/php
brew install shivammathur/php/php@8.1

# Add php module to to Apache config
echo "LoadModule php_module /usr/local/opt/php@8.1/lib/httpd/modules/libphp.so" >> httpd.conf
echo "" >> httpd.conf
echo "    <FilesMatch \.php$>" >> httpd.conf
echo "        SetHandler application/x-httpd-php" >> httpd.conf
echo "    </FilesMatch>" >> httpd.conf
sed -i '' 's/DirectoryIndex index.html/DirectoryIndex index.php index.html/g' httpd.conf

# Add environment variables to load our version of php rather than the default installed php
echo 'PATH="/usr/local/opt/php@8.1/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshenv
echo 'PATH="/usr/local/opt/php@8.1/sbin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshenv
echo 'LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/opt/php@8.1/lib"' >> ~/.zshenv
echo 'CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/opt/php@8.1/include"' >> ~/.zshenv

# Reload profile
source ~/.zshenv


# Create test file to make sure PHP is working properly
echo "<?php phpinfo();" > ~/Sites/info.php

# restart Apache and PHP
brew services restart shivammathur/php/php@8.1
brew services restart httpd

# Check that everything is still working and PHP is loading properly
# open http://localhost/info.php

# Install MySQL
brew install mysql
brew services start mysql

It worked fine with a complicated, jquery-based dynamic HTML solution that I wrote some time ago.