PHP is a great open source, and versatile programming language popular in web development. PHP is known to power major web platforms such as WordPress and Joomla. One way of getting started in PHP journey is by installing it in your local system. In this article we share the how-to process of setting up PHP 8.3 on Rocky / AlmaLinux / CentOS 9|8. There are plenty of resources available for people interested in learning PHP. These include blog tutorials, official documentation, public forums, and thousands of open-source projects.
Enable Remi’s and EPEL repositories
At the time of doing this post, PHP 8.3 is the most recent release. PHP 8.3 packages are available in Remi’s third party RPM repository. We are going to add it into our system.
### Rocky / AlmaLinux / CentOS 9 ###
sudo dnf -y install http://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/remi-release-9.rpm
### Rocky / AlmaLinux / CentOS 8 ###
sudo dnf -y install http://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/remi-release-8.rpmWe also need EPEL repository as dependency.
### Rocky / AlmaLinux / CentOS 9 ###
sudo dnf -y install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-9.noarch.rpm
### Rocky / AlmaLinux / CentOS 8 ###
sudo dnf -y install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-8.noarch.rpmUpdate dnf cache after adding the two repositories.
sudo dnf makecache -yList configured repositories on the system.
$ sudo dnf repolist
repo id repo name
appstream CentOS Stream 9 - AppStream
baseos CentOS Stream 9 - BaseOS
epel Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 9 - x86_64
epel-cisco-openh264 Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 9 openh264 (From Cisco) - x86_64
epel-next Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 9 - Next - x86_64
extras-common CentOS Stream 9 - Extras packages
remi-modular Remi's Modular repository for Enterprise Linux 9 - x86_64
remi-safe Safe Remi's RPM repository for Enterprise Linux 9 - x86_64Reset default PHP module on the system.
sudo dnf module reset php -yInstall PHP 8.3 and extensions
Enable PHP 8.3 Remi module
sudo dnf module -y install php:remi-8.3This should complete in few seconds.
Last metadata expiration check: 0:01:28 ago on Thu 08 Feb 2024 06:27:51 PM UTC.
Dependencies resolved.
======================================================================================================================================================================================================
Package Architecture Version Repository Size
======================================================================================================================================================================================================
....
php remi-8.3
Transaction Summary
======================================================================================================================================================================================================
Install 9 Packages
Total download size: 9.9 M
Installed size: 55 M
Downloading Packages:
...Install php package for CLI use and other key extensions.
sudo dnf -y install php php-{common,pear,cgi,curl,mbstring,gd,mysqlnd,gettext,bcmath,json,xml,fpm,intl,zip,imap}Check the current PHP version to confirm installation was successful.
$ php --version
PHP 8.3.9 (cli) (built: July 04 2024 13:46:41) (NTS gcc x86_64)
Copyright (c) The PHP Group
...You can also run the following commands to show active modules.
php --modulesUsing PHP with Nginx or Apache
If you are using Nginx or Apache virtual hosts you can configure them to use PHP.
1) With Nginx web server
You will require PHP-FPM (FastCGI Process Manager) to listen for incoming PHP requests and executes them.
sudo dnf install nginx php-fpm vim -yStart and enable the services.
$ sudo systemctl enable --now nginx php-fpm
Created symlink from /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/nginx.service to /usr/lib/systemd/system/nginx.service.
Created symlink from /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/php-fpm.service to /usr/lib/systemd/system/php-fpm.service.Cnfigure PHP-FPM to listen on a socket instead of IP and port, and set other configurations.
$ sudo vim /etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf
user = nginx
group = nginx
;listen = 127.0.0.1:9000
listen = /var/run/php-fpm.sock
listen.owner = nginx
listen.group = nginx
listen.mode = 0660Restart the PHP FPM service after applying the changes.
sudo systemctl restart php-fpmAdd the following block inside the http block of Nginx configuration file to forward PHP requests to PHP-FPM.
$ sudo vim /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
server {
listen 80;
server_name myapp.example.com;
root /var/www/myapp;
index index.php index.html;
location ~ \.php$ {
include /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;
fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php-fpm.sock;
}
}Check configurations syntax.
$ sudo nginx -t
nginx: the configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf syntax is ok
nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test is successful2) With Apache web server
The execution of PHP code in Apache web server is typically through the mod_php module. This comes packaged with apache. The modules does the processing PHP code directly within the Apache process.
If Apache httpd server package is not installed, perform it as below.
sudo dnf -y install httpd php-fpmIf Nginx is active, disable it or change listen address from 80/443 to a different ports.
sudo systemctl disable --now nginxNow start and enable httpd service.
sudo systemctl enable --now httpd php-fpmTesting PHP 8.3 installation
Create a test PHP file in the web root directory /var/www/html/ to test your PHP works.
sudo echo "<?php phpinfo(); ?>" > /var/www/html/test.phpAccess PHP test page oat http://localhost_or_serverip/test.php.
We can confirm PHP is working as anticipated. You can now delete test script.
sudo rm -f /var/www/html/test.phpHere is a list of best books to read on PHP and web technologies.
- Best Books To Master Web Design
- Best Books to learn Web Development – PHP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript and jQuery
- Best Books To Learn CSS & CSS3
- Best Books To Learn HTML & HTML5
- Best Apache and Nginx reference Books
For more in depth information about PHP visit the php.net documentation.
