MAMP, MainWP can not install zip plugins at websites

Hello, I installed my MainWP Dashboard on a local MAMP environment on my MacBook for security reasons. Updating, installing plugins from the repository works wonderfully. Unfortunately I cannot install plugins as a ZIP file.
What am I doing wrong and how do I fix this error?

That’s probably because the child sites can’t reach your dashboard as it won’t be available from the internet. When installing a plugin via a zip file, it sends a link to the file on your dashboard site to the child site, that must be downloaded from the dashboard site. That site can’t be reached and fails…

Can i ro anything to use it in mamp

I don’t think this function can work when using a local install, but one of the MainWP team members will chime in with more information.

Installing plugins/themes via a ZIP file requires a Child Site to download the ZIP from the local Dashboard, and such inbound connections are not possible.

This is intended behavior of all local host solutions. By design they do not accept remote inbound connection and they are not designed to securely host content for world-wide internet.

It may be possible to temporarily set up port forwarding to enable remote connections, but it is very much NOT advisable to keep the port forwarding open. MAMP was simply not designed with that in mind and lacks security features to protect your installation.

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There are definitely ways to do this with local installations - but you will need to do a bit more setup in order to pull it off securely.

As mentioned by @bojan already, the LAN ( Local Area Network ) default design of any standard OS Firewall is to block all “INBOUND” traffic for local Installations. We do have security concerns that should be address if you choose to go that route. IMO this is a better option then simply opening the proverbial “Barn Door” of your LAN Firewall /PC.

With that said, I would look into NGROK which is a tunneling tool specifically designed for this used case. Other Local Environment tools such as ( Laragon ) rely upon this in order to securely setup temporary publicly accessible URLs.

[Use at your own risk - NOT TESTED OR APROOVED BY MAINWP. ]
DO treat this setup as a LIVE Site. Make sure you are using a VERY Secure Password, MainWP Dashboard Lock & if possible Wordfence 2fa

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