Install PHP 7.2 under CentOS 7

CentOS is one of the top scorers among the free Linux operating systems with just over 20% market share among the open source operating systems. If you install Cent OS 7 today (in the year 2019) and would like to use PHP afterwards, you’ll encounter a bad surprise: The “latest” packaged version for CentOS 7 ist PHP 5.4

This version of PHP is already deprecated a long time ago and support for PHP 5.4 has ended by September 2015 ( Link: https://php.net/supported-versions.php )

So if you are an IT or linux administrator and want to deploy php on your newly installed Centos / server, you have to find a different way to install PHP . Otherwise you’d run the risk of getting hacked.

By the time of this writing the latest version of PHP being both up-to-date and maintained by the PHP developpers is PHP 7.2. So let’s jump in and install PHP 7.2. on CentOS 7:

First you should update the operating (CentOS) itself with:

yum –y update

 

This might take anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes. It mainly depends on how fast your server and internet connection are. And of course it depends on how long hou haven’t done any updates.

Please note: If there is any kernel-package among the updated packages you should reboot your Centos machine.

Before we go ahead we need to enable two package depots. Don’t worry if you have already done this. It will do no harm if repeated:

yum –y install epel-release
rpm -Uvh https://mirror.webtatic.com/yum/el7/webtatic-release.rpm

Before we continue it’s safe to uninstall any php or php-related software.

yum -y remove php-common php56w-common
yum -y remove mod_php71w php71w-opcache php71w-common
yum -y remove mod_php70w php70w-opcache php70w-common
yum -y remove mod_php72w php72w-opcache php72w-common

 

Now you can install PHP version 7.2:

Yum –y install php72w php72w-common php

Just in case you’d like to install most of the related software packages like mysql-drivers or other php-7.2 packages, here’s the more extensive list::

yum -y install mod_php72w php72w php72w-opcache php72w-common php72w-mysql php72w-devel php72w-gd php72w-xml php72w-mbstring php72w-pdo php72w-odbc php72w-xml php72w-soap php72w-mssql  php72w-common php72w-mysql php72w-xmlrpc php72w-snmp php72w-process php72w-pear php72w-gd php72w-ldap php72w-cli php72w-mbstring php72w-opcache

 

Last but not least you might want to check the installed vesion of PHP. You can do this by typing “php –v” . Your output should look like this:

[root@fmtest02mb ~]# php -v
PHP 7.2.17 (cli) (built: May 13 2019 18:03:04) ( NTS )
Copyright (c) 1997-2018 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v3.2.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2018 Zend Technologies
with Zend OPcache v7.2.17, Copyright (c) 1999-2018, by Zend Technologies
[root@fmtest02mb ~]#

The important part ist “PHP 7.2.17 (cli)”.

Conclusion: If you know how – removing any old PHP package and installing PHP 7.2 is pretty easy. Now your users can enjoy the speed and robustness of PHP 7 under Centos 7.