Replace PHP 5.4 with 5.6 in CentOS (or RedHat) 7.x

CentOS 7.x (and RedHat 7.x) ships with PHP 5.4, which does not allow you to run software like Drupal 8, Symfony 3, etc. This tutorial shows how to replace PHP 5.4 with Remi's PHP 5.6 packages.

Remi's PHP56 repository allows you to install PHP in 2 different ways:


  • Software Collection: updated PHP packages are installed in /opt/remi and it doesn't replace your system's PHP. You decide which PHP module to load in Apache's configuration. RedHat has official Software Collections for PHP55 and PHP56 in their software channels.

  • Replacement packages: Old PHP packages are uninstalled and replaced with the new packages. Updates for the new PHP packages will come from Remi's repository. RedHat does not offer "replacement packages" for PHP as of July-2016, only Remi provides them.


In our example server below, we will replace the current PHP version with Remi's PHP 5.6.

Before installing PHP 5.6, apply any existing updates available for your distribution:

root@server: ~ # yum check-update
root@server: ~ # yum update

Also, this is a good moment to get (and save somewhere) a list of our installed packages (in case we need to rollback):

root@server: ~/sources # rpm -qa |grep php
php-mbstring-5.4.16-36.1.el7_2.1.x86_64
php-mysql-5.4.16-36.1.el7_2.1.x86_64
(...)
php-gd-5.4.16-36.1.el7_2.1.x86_64
php-odbc-5.4.16-36.1.el7_2.1.x86_64

Download and install the "repos" package:

root@server: ~ # wget http://rpms.famillecollet.com/enterprise/remi-release-7.rpm

root@server: ~ # rpm -Uhv remi-release-7.rpm
warning: remi-release-7.rpm: Header V4 DSA/SHA1 Signature, key ID 00f97f56: NOKEY
Preparing...                          ################################# [100%]
Updating / installing...
   1:remi-release-7.2-1.el7.remi      ################################# [100%]

Now enable the repository in Yum by setting enable=1 for the remi-php56 repo:

root@server: ~ # vim /etc/yum.repos.d/remi.repo
(...)

[remi-php56]
name=Remi's PHP 5.6 RPM repository for Enterprise Linux 7 - $basearch
mirrorlist=http://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/7/php56/mirror
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-remi

(...)


Install the packages not as a Software Collection but as "Replacement Packages":

root@server: ~ # yum update

This yum update command should upgrade all our PHP packages. If it does not upgrade them or we don't have PHP already installed, then do:

root@server: ~ # yum --enablerepo=remi-php56 install php-cli

Yum will remove the old packages and install the new ones. For me it was clean and simple, for other cases (lots of PHP packages or modules), it might require some manual work (uninstall some old package previously or similar).

We can get some PHP warnings like: PHP Warning: Module 'xmlwriter' already loaded in Unknown on line 0 or PHP Warning: PHP Startup: mbstring: Unable to initialize module. This happens while the modules are being upgraded. You can ignore these warnings: the only module that will still providing errors/warnings when we restart Apache will be APC:

PHP Warning:  PHP Startup: apc: Unable to initialize module


APC does not work anymore with PHP >=5.5 (only the user-land cache APCu still works), so the best approach is now to use PHP's integrated OPCACHE.

# Disabling APC:
root@server: ~ # mv /etc/php.d/apc.ini /etc/php.d/apc.ini.old.PHP54

# Enable OPCACHE in php.ini:
root@server: ~ # tail -20 /etc/php.ini
; Initial opcache settings
opcache.enable=1
opcache.enable_cli=1
opcache.fast_shutdown=1

; Memory config
opcache.memory_consumption=1024
opcache.interned_strings_buffer=16
opcache.max_accelerated_files=32531
opcache.max_file_size=0

; FOR PRODUCTION (never check timestamps of php files):
;opcache.revalidate_freq=0
;validate_timestamps=0

; FOR DEVELOPMENT (check timestamp on each access):
opcache.revalidate_freq=0
validate_timestamps=1

Now, restart Apache:

root@server: ~ # systemctl restart httpd

And enjoy your PHP 5.6:

root@server: ~ # php -v
PHP 5.6.23 (cli) (built: Jun 22 2016 08:56:52)
Copyright (c) 1997-2016 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v2.6.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2016 Zend Technologies

If you need to install phpmyadmin at this point, you must use remi's package also:

root@server: ~ # yum --enablerepo=remi-php56 install phpMyAdmin


<Volver a la sección de GNU/Linux>

  • linux/aplicaciones/php/php56_centos7.txt
  • Última modificación: 21-07-2016 08:29
  • por sromero