Upgrade PHP From 5.4 to 7.0 on a CentOS 7 Cloud Server

The default version of PHP available on a new Cloud Server running CentOS 7 is version 5.4. Learn how to upgrade this to PHP 7.0. You will need to perform the upgrade by hand, since PHP 7 is not available in the standard CentOS 7 yum repository, because it is not considered stable.

Note

This is a significant upgrade, with potential for causing serious conflicts with any web software you may be running.

We strongly recommend that you create a snapshot of your server before you proceed. This will allow you to roll back any changes if you encounter a problem with the upgrade.

Requirements

  • A Cloud Server running CentOS 7
  • PHP version 5.4

Use the php -v command to verify your current PHP version:

[jdoe@localhost ~]$ php -v
PHP 5.4.16 (cli) (built: Nov  6 2016 00:29:02)
Copyright (c) 1997-2013 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v2.4.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2013 Zend Technologies

Upgrade to PHP 7

We will be using the IUS repository to upgrade PHP. Although there are several repositories which have made available versions of PHP 7 for CentOS 7, IUS is the only one which carries the official recommendation of the CentOS Project.

sudo yum install https://centos7.iuscommunity.org/ius-release.rpm

Remove the existing version of PHP:

sudo yum remove php-common mod_php php-cli

Update packages:

sudo yum update

Install PHP 7:

sudo yum install php70u php70u-pdo php70u-mysqlnd php70u-opcache php70u-xml php70u-gd php70u-devel php70u-mysql

Restart Apache:

sudo systemctl restart httpd

Use the php -v command to verify that PHP has been upgraded:

[jdoe@localhost erika]# php -v
PHP 7.0.18 (cli) (built: Apr 13 2017 15:18:10) ( NTS )
Copyright (c) 1997-2017 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v3.0.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2017 Zend Technologies
with Zend OPcache v7.0.18, Copyright (c) 1999-2017, by Zend Technologies
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