Installing PHP 7.x on Rocky Linux 8

Hello,

In this week’s feature highlight, we look at How to Install PHP 7 x on Rocky Linux 8

Installing the EPEL and Remi Repository

For this we use the PHP 7.x packaged by Remi, a third-party repository which offers multiple versions of PHP 7.x and 8.x

First, lets install the EPEL repository,

rpm -Uvh https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-8.noarch.rpm

Next, install the Remi repository with the following command,

yum install -y https://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/remi-release-8.rpm

List the available PHP module stream

To check/list the available PHP versions, use the following command,

yum module list php

Output:

[root@server ~]# yum module list php
Last metadata expiration check: 2:11:11 ago on Wed 12 May 2021 11:54:38 AM EDT.
Rocky Linux 8 - AppStream
Name     Stream         Profiles                       Summary
php      7.2 [d][e]     common [d], devel, minimal     PHP scripting language
php      7.3            common [d], devel, minimal     PHP scripting language
php      7.4            common [d], devel, minimal     PHP scripting language

Remi's Modular repository for Enterprise Linux 8 - x86_64
Name     Stream         Profiles                       Summary
php      remi-7.2       common [d], devel, minimal     PHP scripting language
php      remi-7.3       common [d], devel, minimal     PHP scripting language
php      remi-7.4       common [d], devel, minimal     PHP scripting language
php      remi-8.0       common [d], devel, minimal     PHP scripting language

Hint: [d]efault, [e]nabled, [x]disabled, [i]nstalled

Installing PHP 7.x

First, lets disable the old version before enabling the new one,

dnf module reset php

Output:

[root@server ~]# dnf module reset php
Last metadata expiration check: 2:11:49 ago on Wed 12 May 2021 11:54:38 AM EDT.
Dependencies resolved.
================================================================================
 Package           Architecture     Version             Repository         Size
================================================================================
Resetting modules:
 php

Transaction Summary
================================================================================

Is this ok [y/N]: y
Complete!

Below are the commands to install a specific version of PHP to your requirements,

dnf module install php:remi-7.2

dnf module install php:remi-7.3

dnf module install php:remi-7.4

dnf module install php:remi-8.0

In our case, we will install PHP 7.4 via the remi repository,

dnf module install php:remi-7.4

Output:

[root@server ~]# dnf module install php:remi-7.4
Last metadata expiration check: 2:12:20 ago on Wed 12 May 2021 11:54:38 AM EDT.
Dependencies resolved.
================================================================================
 Package            Arch        Version                 Repository         Size
================================================================================
Upgrading:
 php                x86_64      7.4.19-1.el8.remi       remi-modular      3.0 M
 php-cli            x86_64      7.4.19-1.el8.remi       remi-modular      4.6 M
 php-common         x86_64      7.4.19-1.el8.remi       remi-modular      1.2 M
 php-fpm            x86_64      7.4.19-1.el8.remi       remi-modular      1.6 M
 php-gd             x86_64      7.4.19-1.el8.remi       remi-modular       93 k
 php-json           x86_64      7.4.19-1.el8.remi       remi-modular       77 k

You can update your system and installed packages at any time by running the following command,

dnf update

Check Installed PHP Version

Now that we have installed PHP 7.4 via the remi repository, we can verify the version installed by running the php -v command,

php -v

Output:

[root@server ~]# php -v
PHP 7.4.19 (cli) (built: May  4 2021 11:06:37) ( NTS )
Copyright (c) The PHP Group
Zend Engine v3.4.0, Copyright (c) Zend Technologies
    with Zend OPcache v7.4.19, Copyright (c), by Zend Technologies

Done!