CentOS 7 ships with PHP version 5.4 which has been officially EOL for quite some time and is no longer supported.

By using PHP 7 your applications will load faster and consume less system resources.

In this tutorial, we will explain how to install or upgrade to PHP 7.0. 7.1, 7.2 and 7.3 on a CentOS 7 system. We’ll also show you how to integrate PHP with Nginx and Apache.

Also prior to installing a specific PHP 7.x version make sure that it is supported by your application.

 

Prerequisites

Before starting with this tutorial, make sure you are logged into your server with a user account with sudo privileges or with the root user. It is best practice to run administrative commands as sudo user instead of root. If you don’t have sudo user on your system you can create one by following these instructions.

 

Enabling Remi repository

PHP 7.x packages are available in several different repositories. We’ll use the Remi repository which provides newer versions of various software packages including PHP.

The Remi repository depends on the EPEL repository. Run the following commands to enable both EPEL and Remi repositories:

sudo yum install epel-release yum-utils
sudo yum install http://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/remi-release-7.rpm

Yum may prompt you to import the repository GPG key. Type y and hit Enter.

In the following sections, we will be covering how to install PHP 7.x by enabling the appropriate Remi repository. If you already have PHP 5.4 installed on your system yum will update the PHP packages.

 

Installing PHP 7.3 on CentOS 7

PHP 7.3 is the latest stable release of PHP. Most modern PHP frameworks and applications including WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, and Laravel are fully supporting PHP 7.3.

Perform the steps below to install PHP 7.3 on CentOS 7.

  1. Start by enabling the PHP 7.3 Remi repository:

    sudo yum-config-manager --enable remi-php73

  2. Install PHP 7.3 and some of the most common PHP modules:

    sudo yum install php php-common php-opcache php-mcrypt php-cli php-gd php-curl php-mysqlnd

  3. Verify the PHP installation, by typing the following command which will print the PHP version:

    php -v

    PHP 7.3.1 (cli) (built: Jan  8 2019 1351) ( NTS )
Copyright (c) 1997-2018 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v3.3.1, Copyright (c) 1998-2018 Zend Technologies
with Zend OPcache v7.3.1, Copyright (c) 1999-2018, by Zend Technologies

 

Installing PHP 7.2 on CentOS 7

Use PHP 7.2 only if you’re going to install applications such as Magento 2 that is not compatible with PHP 7.2.

The following steps describe how to install PHP 7.2 CentOS 7.

  1. First enable the PHP 7.2 Remi repository by running the following command:

    sudo yum-config-manager --enable remi-php72

  2. Once the repository is enabled install PHP 7.2 and few most common PHP modules:

    sudo yum install php php-common php-opcache php-mcrypt php-cli php-gd php-curl php-mysqlnd

  3. Verify the PHP installation:

    php -v

    PHP 7.2.9 (cli) (built: Aug 15 2018 0933) ( NTS )
Copyright (c) 1997-2018 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v3.2.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2018 Zend Technologies
with Zend OPcache v7.2.9, Copyright (c) 1999-2018, by Zend Technologies

 

Installing PHP 7.1 on CentOS 7

Follow the steps below to install PHP 7.1.

  1. Enable the PHP 7.1 repository by typing:

    sudo yum-config-manager --enable remi-php71

  2. Install PHP 7.1 and few most common PHP modules:

    sudo yum install php php-common php-opcache php-mcrypt php-cli php-gd php-curl php-mysql

  3. To verify the installation, run the following command which will print the PHP version:

    php -v

    PHP 7.1.21 (cli) (built: Aug 15 2018 1755) ( NTS )
Copyright (c) 1997-2018 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v3.1.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2018 Zend Technologies
with Zend OPcache v7.1.21, Copyright (c) 1999-2018, by Zend Technologies
The end!