Sharing databases is something that’s convenient to do within your local development environment especially if you’re working with multiple machines.
If for whatever reason you’re looking to do this with a staging environment or production environment, then this is not the way to do it. There are strategies like database replication and the like that are meant for that, and that are far beyond the scope of this post.
Instead, this is primarily intended for systems that you have, likely on the same network, and that you swap between during the day.
Enhance remote collaboration with Zoom instant meetings and video recordings. Bring Slack conversations and Dropbox content together to keep teams in sync. Easily and securely send files to clients and vendors from within Adobe Photoshop. Easily access, edit. Jan 25, 2015 First, install and run MAMP on your primary computer. Verify that MySQL is running, and then stop the servers and quit MAMP. In your Dropbox directory, create a directory called MAMP; this will hold all of MAMP-related files. Mkdir /Dropbox/MAMP. Move MySQL to Dropbox. Move your MAMP PRO db directory into your /Dropbox/MAMP directory.
Sharing Databases
First, the whole idea behind sharing databases is to make it easy to work with the same set of information across multiple machines when working on small-ish projects. Since databases are nothing more than [intelligently managed] files, they can be stored and synchronized in software like Dropbox.
Secondly, although the example that I’m going to give is specifically for MAMP Pro, this is applicable not only to MAMP but other systems as well. You just need to know where your software of choice keeps its database files.
For MAMP Pro and on macOS, this is in the /Library/Application Support/appsolute/MAMP PRO directory. More specifically, it’s in the db subdirectory, but I’ll get to that momentarily.
And the idea behind sharing databases between (or among) machines is this:
- have Dropbox installed on each machine,
- have MAMP Pro (or your software of choice) installed on each machine,
- be comfortable with symbolic links (or shortcuts, if you’re on Windows).
Since I’m on macOS, the following set of instructions are going to be specifically for that, but they can be tailored for other machines.
1. Backup Your Data
This should go without saying, but anything that’s located in the /Library/Application Support/appsolute/MAMP PRO/db directory should be saved in case you make an error when setting up the shared resources.
To do this, copy (versus move) the db directory to another place on your hard drive so that you can easily restore it if something goes wrong.
2. Create a Location in Dropbox
This is up to you, but I’m a fan of using an “Apps” directory out of which I create shared settings. Sometimes this is for editors, other times it’s for software like Transmit (as you see in the shot above), and I’m using it for sharing databases, too.
Note, however, that the name of the directory is important – at least to a degree. I prefer the name the directory based on the directory that it’s going to represent as I create a link between the two files.
So, for example, in Dropbox, I have /Apps/MAMP/db since I have a db directory on the hard drive.
3. Copy the Database to Dropbox
From there, I copy the db directory from its original location on the hard drive to the location I’ve selected in Dropbox.
After that, I need to create a link.
4. Create a Symbolic Link
This is where things can break if you’re not careful. First, make sure MAMP is completely closed. Note that the syntax for symbolic links takes the destination directory first then the source directory second.
Next, I usually remove the db directory from its original location. This isn’t something that has to be done, but I find it cleaner to start without anything in the MAMP directory such that when I create the symbolic link, that’s what it creates.
So open a Terminal window and enter the following command:
After that, verify your Dropbox directory contains the database files, as expected, and that your db directory in MAMP is referencing an external directory (it will have an arrow overlay on it like this):
External Database Reference
Again, With the Local Environments
To reiterate, this is something that I recommend only for local environments and something that I think you should do only if you aren’t dealing with sensitive data.
A Note From a Reader
you also want to make sure only 1 machine has MySQL service running at a time.
— Scott Lesovic (@gMagicScott) February 15, 2017
Specifically, make sure that when you’re setting this up, you have your servers off. And when you move to a another machine, you turned MySQL off on the original machine.
Back on Target
Database replication across other machines is best left to the experts, and sharing sensitive information should be self-evident as to why this shouldn’t be stored in Dropbox.
Other than that, once all is said and done, load MAMP on your machines and you should see all of your data available across each machine and accessible from your favorite database front-end.
MAMP & MAMP PRO v4.1.0.23975
MAMP PRO is the commercial, professional grade version of the classic local server environment: MAMP. Designed for professional web developers and programmers, MAMP PRO allows easy installation and administration of their development environment.
Mobile Testing
Locally testing your sites on mobile devices has never been easier – thanks to the free MAMP Viewer mobile apps for iPhone/iPad and Android. Access every virtual host that you have created with MAMP PRO and get instant feedback on how it performs on a mobile device.
Editor
Whether you want to make a quick modification to an existing project or start a complete new project from scratch: The new MAMP PRO editor lets you do all of this without opening another application.
Dropbox Support
MAMP PRO supports Dropbox. Now you can copy one or more hosts to your dropbox and continue working with them on a different computer. The Dropbox feature is also a convenient way for backing up your hosts.
Nginx
MAMP PRO now supports Nginx. Nginx is a HTTP and reverse proxy server, a mail proxy server, and a generic TCP/UDP proxy server. According to Netcraft, Nginx served or proxied 27.61% of the busiest sites in June 2016.
Searchable Host Overview
MAMP PRO 4 lets you visually browse your hosts. Find any host with the new search function. The hosts overview shows a snapshot of the start page for all hosts. Open up the highlighted host in your default browser just by double-clicking on it.
MAMP PRO 4 brings your web development to a whole new level:
- Vastly improved GUI with a Finder-like sidebar
- Integrated editor for editing source files and viewing images, PDF and movie files
- Preview mobile websites with a specialized app for iOS
- Faster server restarts
- A configuration GUI for Nginx
- In-App Updates for popular components: PHP, phpMyAdmin, cURL and OpenSSL
- Searchable Host Overview with site previews
- MySQL 5.6
- Ruby with Rails
- Make PHP, Perl, Python and Ruby easily available on the command line
- GroupStart: Define which Servers and Services will automatically start
- Save and Restore server settings for individual hosts
- Additional Extras available (Magento, phpBB, Presta Shop and MediaWiki)
- Customizable toolbar for often needed functions
- Manage all your project assets with the new Assets window
- Use the Scrap Pad for copying code snippets and more
- Show recently used hosts
- Generic DNS Services are now supported
- Start/Restart/Stop Servers and Services independently
- and many more…
System Requirements:
Windows 10, Windows 8.1 or Windows 7, 2GB RAM, Available HDD space for installation: 2GB
MAMP & MAMP PRO
Cloud functionality added
Server startup and shutdown has been improved
Some texts have been clarified
The button labels were adapted to the general rules for Windows
Improvement of the user interface (buttons, alignments, distances, frames, ...)
Improved display (size, focus) of database tool windows
'My Webstart' now opens in a new window/ tab
PHP extension PDO (PHP Data Objects) is now active by default
Installation
Improvement of the display of graphics
Correction of the display of some checkboxes (Windows 10)
MAMP
Improvement of the display of the settings window
Correction of MySQL version number display in Help
MAMP PRO
Fixed bugs that occurred after changing the MySQL password
The cause of a possible program crash when restoring a backup has been fixed
The cause of a possible program crash when deleting a host has been fixed
The cause of a possible program crash when shutting down the server has been fixed
The cause of a possible program crash when entering the serial number has been fixed
An error with the installation of the WordPress extras has been fixed
Fixed a bug when installing the bootstrap extra
Additional checks have been added when creating databases
utf8_general_ci is now the default collation for MySQL
Microsoft Edge has been added to the list of browsers (if installed)
The MAMP logo was not displayed on the placeholder page when using Nginx as a web server.
Components:
Apache 2.2.31
Nginx 1.13.1
MySQL 5.7.24
PHP 5.3.23, 5.4.45, 5.5.38, 5.6.0, 5.6.37, 7.0.0, 7.0.31, 7.1.0, 7.1.20, 7.2.1, 7.2.8 (for PHP 7: Windows 7 minimum with SP1)
OpenSSL 1.0.2h
APC 3.1.13
APCu 5.1.3 & 4.0.7
Xdebug 2.4.0
eAccelerator 1.0
XCache 3.2.0
OPCache 7.0.4
Python 2.7.6
mod_wsgi 3.4.0
Perl 5.16.1
mod_perl 2.0.8
phpMyAdmin 4.8.3
SQLiteManager 1.2.4
phpLiteAdmin 1.9.4.1
Freetype 2.4.10
curl 7.36.0
libpng 1.5.18
Mamp Dropbox Login
ImageMagick 6.8.9-1
Imagick 3.4.1
gd 2.1.0
zlib 1.2.8
libxml2 2.9.1
gettext 0.18.1.1
Mamp Dropbox Account
iconv 1.14
mcrypt 2.5.8
Only for V.I.P
Map Dropbox Drive Windows 10