How to install PHP (7.2, 7.3 or 7.4) on Ubuntu (ok)
How to install PHP (7.2, 7.3 or 7.4) on Ubuntu
by ThisHosting.Rocks|Updated November 13, 2019
Finally, the third part of our LAMP tutorial series: how to install PHP on Ubuntu. In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to install various versions of PHP, including PHP 7.2, PHP 7.3, and the latest PHP 7.4
This tutorial should work for any Ubuntu release and other Ubuntu-based releases. Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 18.04, even Ubuntu 19.10.
Tutorials here:
For the first part of our LAMP series, go to our How to Install and Optimize Apache on Ubuntu tutorial.
And for the second part, go to How to Install MySQL/MariaDB on Ubuntu.
Before we begin installing PHP on Ubuntu
PHP has different versions and releases you can use. Starting from the oldest that is currently supported – PHP 7.2, and onto PHP 7.3 and the latest – PHP 7.4. We’ll include instructions for PHP 7.4, PHP 7.2 (the default in Ubuntu 18.04) and the default PHP version in the Ubuntu 16.04 repositories – PHP 7. We recommend that you install PHP 7.3 as it’s stable and has lots of improvements and new features. If you still use PHP 7.1, you definitely need to upgrade ASAP because its security support ends at the end of 2019.
You’ll obviously need an Ubuntu server. You can get one from Vultr. Their servers start at $2.5 per month. Or you can go with any other cloud server provider where you have root access to the server.
You’ll also need root access to your server. Either use the root user or a user with sudo access. We’ll use the root user in our tutorial so there’s no need to execute each command with ‘sudo’, but if you’re not using the root user, you’ll need to do that.
You’ll need SSH enabled if you use Ubuntu or an SSH client like MobaXterm if you use Windows.
Check if PHP is already installed on your server. You can use the ‘which php’ command. If it gives you a result, it’s installed, if it doesn’t, PHP is not installed. You can also use the “php -v” command. If one version is installed, you can still upgrade to another.
Some shared hosts have already implemented PHP 7.3 and PHP 7.4 in their shared servers, like Hawk Host and SiteGround.
Now, onto our tutorial.
How to install PHP 7 on Ubuntu 16.04
Currently, as of January 2018, the default PHP release in the Ubuntu 16.04 repositories is PHP 7.0. We’ll show you how to install it using Ubuntu’s repository.
You should use PHP 7.2 or 7.3 instead of the default, outdated PHP version in Ubuntu 16.04. Skip these instructions and follow the instructions below for a newer version.
Update Ubuntu
First, before you do anything else, you should update your Ubuntu server:
Install PHP
Next, to install PHP, just run the following command:
This command will install PHP 7.0, as well as some other dependencies:
php-common
php7.0
php7.0-cli
php7.0-common
php7.0-fpm
php7.0-json
php7.0-opcache
php7.0-readline
To verify if PHP is installed, run the following command:
You should get a response similar to this:
And that’s it. PHP is installed on your Ubuntu server.
Install PHP 7.0 modules
You may need some additional packages and PHP modules in order for PHP to work with your applications. You can install the most commonly needed modules with:
Depending on how and what you’re going to use, you may need additional PHP modules and packages. To check all the PHP modules available in Ubuntu, run:
You can tweak the command to only show ^php7.0- packages etc.
If you want to use the latest PHP version, follow the next instructions instead.
How to Install PHP 7.2 on Ubuntu 16.04
PHP 7.2 is a stable version of PHP and has many new features, improvements, and bug fixes. You should definitely use it if you want a better, faster website/application.
Update Ubuntu
Of course, as always, first update Ubuntu:
Add the PHP repository
You can use a third-party repository to install the latest version of PHP. We’ll use the repository by Ondřej Surý.
First, make sure you have the following package installed so you can add repositories:
Next, add the PHP repository from Ondřej:
And finally, update your package list:
Install PHP 7.2
After you’ve added the repository, you can install PHP 7.2 with the following command:
This command will install additional packages:
libapache2-mod-php7.2
libargon2-0
libsodium23
libssl1.1
php7.2-cli
php7.2-common
php7.2-json
php7.2-opcache
php7.2-readline
And that’s it. To check if PHP 7.2 is installed on your server, run the following command:
Install PHP 7.2 modules
You may need additional packages and modules depending on your applications. The most commonly used modules can be installed with the following command:
And that’s all. You can now start using PHP on your Ubuntu server.
If you want to further tweak and configure your PHP, read our instructions below.
How to Install PHP 7.2 on Ubuntu 18.04
PHP 7.2 is included by default in Ubuntu’s repositories since version 18.04. So the instructions are pretty similar to PHP 7 for 16.04.
Update Ubuntu
Again, before doing anything, you should update your server:
Install PHP 7.2
Next, to install PHP 7.2 on Ubuntu 18.04, just run the following command:
This command will install PHP 7.2, as well as some other dependencies.
To verify if PHP is installed, run the following command:
You should get a response similar to this:
And that’s it. PHP 7.2 is installed on your Ubuntu 18.04 server.
Install PHP 7.2 modules
These are the most common PHP 7.2 modules often used by php applications. You may need more or less, so check the requirements of the software you’re planning to use:
To check all the PHP modules available in Ubuntu, run:
How to install PHP 7.3 on Ubuntu 18.04 or 16.04
PHP 7.3 is a stable version that you can safely use on your servers.
Update Ubuntu
First, update your Ubuntu server:
Add the PHP repository
To install PHP 7.3 you’ll need to use a third-party repository. We’ll use the repository by Ondřej Surý that we previously used.
First, make sure you have the following package installed so you can add repositories:
Next, add the PHP repository from Ondřej:
And finally, update your package list:
Install PHP 7.3
After you’ve added the repository, you can install PHP 7.3 with the following command:
This command will install additional packages:
libapache2-mod-php7.3
libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
php7.3-cli
php7.3-common
php7.3-json
php7.3-opcache
php7.3-readline
…and others.
And that’s it. To check if PHP 7.3 is installed on your server, run the following command:
Install PHP 7.3 modules
You may need additional packages and modules depending on your applications. The most commonly used modules can be installed with the following command:
And that’s all. You can now start using PHP on your Ubuntu server.
If you want to further tweak and configure your PHP, read our instructions below.
How to install PHP 7.4 on Ubuntu 18.04 or 16.04
PHP 7.4 is the latest version of PHP that has lots of improvements. The instructions are pretty similar to PHP 7.3.
Update Ubuntu
First, update your Ubuntu server:
Add the PHP repository
To install PHP 7.4 you’ll need to use a third-party repository. We’ll use the repository by Ondřej Surý that we previously used again.
First, make sure you have the following package installed so you can add repositories:
Next, add the PHP repository from Ondřej:
And finally, update your package list:
Install PHP 7.4
After you’ve added the repository, you can install PHP 7.4 with the following command:
This command will install additional packages:
libapache2-mod-php7.4
libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
php7.4-cli
php7.4-common
php7.4-json
php7.4-opcache
php7.4-readline
…and others.
And that’s it. To check if PHP 7.4 is installed on your server, run the following command:
Install PHP 7.4 modules
You may need additional packages and modules depending on your applications. The most commonly used modules can be installed with the following command:
And that’s all. You can now start using PHP on your Ubuntu server.
If you want to further tweak and configure your PHP, read our instructions below.
How to change the PHP version you’re using
If you have multiple PHP versions installed on your Ubuntu server, you can change what version is the default one.
To set PHP 7.2 as the default, run:
To set PHP 7.3 as the default, run:
To set PHP 7.4 as the default, run:
If you’re following our LAMP tutorials and you’re using Apache, you can configure Apache to use PHP 7.3 with the following command:
And then restart Apache for the changes to take effect:
How to upgrade to PHP 7.3 or 7.4 on Ubuntu
If you’re already using an older version of PHP with some of your applications, you can upgrade by:
Backup everything.
Install the newest PHP and required modules.
Change the default version you’re using.
(Optionally) Remove the older PHP
(Required) Configure your software to use the new PHP version. You’ll most likely need to configure Nginx/Apache, and many other services/applications. If you’re not sure what you need to do, contact professionals and let them do it for you.
Speed up PHP by using an opcode cache
You can improve the performance of your PHP by using a caching method. We’ll use APCu, but there are other alternatives available.
If you have the ‘php-pear’ module installed (we included it in our instructions above), you can install APCu with the following command:
There are also other ways you can install APCu, including using a package.
To start using APCu, you should run the following command for PHP 7.2:
Or this command for PHP 7.3:
And the following command for PHP 7.4:
If you’re following our LAMP tutorials and you’re using Apache, create a symlink for the file you’ve just created.
For PHP 7.2:
For PHP 7.3:
For PHP 7.4:
And finally, reload Apache for the changes to take effect:
To further configure APCu and how it works, you can add some additional lines to the cache.ini file you previously created. The best configuration depends on what kind of server you’re using, what applications you are using etc. Either google it and find a configuration that works for you, or contact professionals and let them do it for you.
That’s it for our basic setup. Of course, there are much more options and configurations you can do, but we’ll leave them for another tutorial.
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