Appendix B. Installing on Mac OS X
CouchDBX
The easiest way to get started with CouchDB on Mac OS X is by downloading CouchDBX. This unofficial application doesn’t install anything to your system and can be run with a single double-click. Note, however, that for more serious use, it is recommended that you do a traditional installation with something like Homebrew.
Homebrew
Homebrew is a recent addition to the software management tools on Mac OS X. Its premise is zero configuration, heavy optimizations, and a beer theme. Get Homebrew from http://github.com/mxcl/homebrew. The installation instructions are minimal. Once you are set up, run:
brew install couchdb
in the Terminal and wait until it is done. To start CouchDB, simply run:
couchdb
to see all the startup options available to you, run:
couchdb -h
This tells you how to run CouchDB in the background, among other useful hints.
To verify that CouchDB is indeed running, open your browser and visit http://127.0.0.1:5984/_utils/index.html.
MacPorts
MacPorts is the de facto package management tool for Mac OS X. While not an official part of the operating system, it can be used to simplify the process of installing FLOSS software on your machine. Before you can install CouchDB with MacPorts, you need to download and install MacPorts.
Make sure your MacPorts installation is up-to-date by running:
sudo port selfupdate
You can install CouchDB with MacPorts by running:
sudo port install couchdb
This command will install all of the necessary dependencies ...