The version of PHP that ships with CentOS 6 and CentOS 7 is getting a bit outdated. Oftentimes, people will want to use a newer version of PHP, such as PHP 5.6. This is easy enough to do, however you should always test this out on a dev server before applying to production just in case you run into problems.
On CentOS, I prefer to use the IUS repo’s as they are actively maintained, and they do not overwrite stock packages which is important.
So to get started, first setup the IUS repo if it isn’t already installed on your server:
# CentOS 6 [root@web01 ~]# rpm -ivh http://dl.iuscommunity.org/pub/ius/stable/CentOS/6/x86_64/ius-release-1.0-14.ius.centos6.noarch.rpm # CentOS 7 [root@web01 ~]# rpm -ivh http://dl.iuscommunity.org/pub/ius/stable/CentOS/7/x86_64/ius-release-1.0-14.ius.centos7.noarch.rpm
To upgrade PHP, yum has a plugin called ‘yum-replace’, which will automatically replace one package with another of your choosing. This simplifies the process of upgrading PHP greatly.
First, confirm that you are not already running another custom version of PHP:
[root@web01 ~]# rpm -qa |grep -i php php-tcpdf-dejavu-sans-fonts-6.2.11-1.el6.noarch php-cli-5.3.3-46.el6_7.1.x86_64 php-pdo-5.3.3-46.el6_7.1.x86_64 ...
Using the output from above, it looks like we just have the stock PHP version installed. I want to upgrade from PHP 5.3 which is the default package on CentOS 6, and replace it with PHP 5.6. Here is how you would run it:
[root@web01 ~]# yum install yum-plugin-replace [root@web01 ~]# yum replace php --replace-with php56u
Perhaps you find that your application doesn’t work with PHP 5.6, so you want to try PHP 5.5 instead:
[root@web01 ~]# yum install yum-plugin-replace [root@web01 ~]# yum replace php56u --replace-with php55u
Or maybe you find that the upgrade is not going to work for your environment, so you want to roll back to the original version:
[root@web01 ~]# yum replace php55u --replace-with php
The yum-replace plugin makes upgrading and downgrading PHP very fast and simple. But just to reiterate an earlier statement, make sure you test this out on a development server before applying to your production server! Its always possible that a module that worked in PHP 5.3 is deprecated in a newer version of PHP, or perhaps your site code is using deprecated functions that no longer exist! So always test first so you know what to expect!