MacPorts on mountain lion - cannot install apache2 due to gettext package

Question

I have been having problem with installing gettext package from macports. When I am launching

 /opt/local/bin/port -v install apache2

it checks dependencies, and continues with gettext package installation. But the configure process freezes here:

checking for egrep... /usr/bin/grep -E

and nothing happens.. can wait hours, nothing changes.

I tried to configure, make, make install manually for that package and it went all fine. But, when same configure is launched by ports, it hangs there. Question:

1) How can that be fixed? 2) Maybe I can somehow manually tell ports, that I installed that gettext package manually already?

Sorry, if wrong "site" for this question. Felt most proper one.

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sudo port -v install apache2 solved the problem :/

still unbelievable, that same operation from root user was hanging..

Answer 1

You need to run macport port command as root best using port as shown in all the examples in the Macports guide This is so that all the processes are set up as the correct user and the files are saved no changeable by other users.

e.g. sudo /opt/local/bin/port -v install apache2

Answer 2

Found this answer at http://theengguy.blogspot.com/2012/05/macports-install-gettext-hangs-on-later.html

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If you are having issues with the installation of gettext and other packages hanging on macports, its most probably due to JAVA_HOME not being set. Set it and it should work:

# export JAVA_HOME=/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework
# /opt/local/bin/port install gettext

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You probably have JAVA_HOME set in your user's environment, but not in root's. While logged in as root, I set JAVA_HOME and successfully built gettext. I've since added this to ~root/.profile so I don't have to remember it in 6 months...