[php] Upgrading PHP on CentOS 6.5 (Final)

I'm trying to update my PHP (currently v:5.3.3 to the latest stable PHP build) but it's not playing ball and it's saying there is nothing to update.

Any help would be useful.

Keeps saying:

No Packages marked for Update

This question is related to php yum centos6

The answer is


For CentOS 6, PHP 5.3.3 is the latest version of PHP available through the official CentOS package repository. Keep in mind, even though PHP 5.3.3 was released July 22, 2010, the official CentOS 6 PHP package was updated November 24, 2013. Why? Critical bug fixes are backported. See this question for more information: "Why are outdated packages installed by yum on CentOS? (specifically PHP 5.1) How to fix?"

If you'd like to use a more recent version of PHP, Les RPM de Remi offers CentOS PHP packages via a repository that you can add to the yum package manager. To add it as a yum repository, follow the site's instructions.

Note: Questions of this variety are probably better suited for Server Fault.


Steps for upgrading to PHP7 on CentOS 6 system. Taken from install-php-7-in-centos-6

To install latest PHP 7, you need to add EPEL and Remi repository to your CentOS 6 system

yum install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-6.noarch.rpm
yum install http://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/remi-release-6.rpm

Now install yum-utils, a group of useful tools that enhance yum’s default package management features

yum install yum-utils

In this step, you need to enable Remi repository using yum-config-manager utility, as the default repository for installing PHP.

yum-config-manager --enable remi-php70

If you want to install PHP 7.1 or PHP 7.2 on CentOS 6, just enable it as shown.

yum-config-manager --enable remi-php71 
yum-config-manager --enable remi-php72

Then finally install PHP 7 on CentOS 6 with all necessary PHP modules using the following command.

yum install php php-mcrypt php-cli php-gd php-curl php-mysql php-ldap php-zip php-fileinfo

Double check the installed version of PHP on your system as follows.

php -V 

This is the easiest way that worked for me: To install PHP 5.6 on CentOS 6 or 7:

CentOS 6. Enter the following commands in the order shown:

yum -y update
yum -y install epel-release
wget https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-6.noarch.rpm
wget https://centos6.iuscommunity.org/ius-release.rpm
rpm -Uvh ius-release*.rpm
yum -y update
yum -y install php56u php56u-opcache php56u-xml php56u-mcrypt php56u-gd php56u-devel php56u-mysql php56u-intl php56u-mbstring php56u-bcmath

CentOS 7. Enter the following commands in the order shown:

yum -y update
yum -y install epel-release
wget https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm
wget https://centos7.iuscommunity.org/ius-release.rpm
rpm -Uvh ius-release*.rpm
yum -y update
yum -y install php56u php56u-opcache php56u-xml php56u-mcrypt php56u-gd php56u-devel php56u-mysql php56u-intl php56u-mbstring php56u-bcmath

Sorry - I'm unable to post the source URL - due to reputation


  1. Verify current version of PHP Type in the following to see the current PHP version:

    php -v

    Should output something like:

    PHP 5.3.3 (cli) (built: Jul 9 2015 17:39:00) Copyright (c) 1997-2010 The PHP Group Zend Engine v2.3.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2010 Zend Technologies

  2. Install the Remi and EPEL RPM repositories

If you haven’t already done so, install the Remi and EPEL repositories

wget https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-6.noarch.rpm && rpm -Uvh epel-release-latest-6.noarch.rpm



wget http://rpms.famillecollet.com/enterprise/remi-release-6.rpm && rpm -Uvh remi-release-6*.rpm

Enable the REMI repository globally:

nano /etc/yum.repos.d/remi.repo

Under the section that looks like [remi] make the following changes:

[remi]
name=Remi's RPM repository for Enterprise Linux 6 - $basearch
#baseurl=http://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/6/remi/$basearch/
mirrorlist=http://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/6/remi/mirror
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-remi

Also, under the section that looks like [remi-php55] make the following changes:

[remi-php56]
name=Remi's PHP 5.6 RPM repository for Enterprise Linux 6 - $basearch
#baseurl=http://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/6/php56/$basearch/
mirrorlist=http://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/6/php56/mirror
# WARNING: If you enable this repository, you must also enable "remi"
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-remi

Type CTRL-O to save and CTRL-X to close the editor

  1. Upgrade PHP 5.3 to PHP 5.6 Now we can upgrade PHP. Simply type in the following command:

    yum -y upgrade php*

Once the update has completed, let’s verify that you have PHP 5.6 installed:

php -v

Should see output similar to the following:

PHP 5.6.14 (cli) (built: Sep 30 2015 14:07:43) 
Copyright (c) 1997-2015 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v2.6.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2015 Zend Technologies

I managed to install php54w according to Simon's suggestion, but then my sites stopped working perhaps because of an incompatibility with php-mysql or some other module. Even frantically restoring the old situation was not amusing: for anyone in my own situation the sequence is:

sudo yum remove php54w
sudo yum remove php54w-common
sudo yum install php-common
sudo yum install php-mysql
sudo yum install php

It would be nice if someone submitted the full procedure to update all the php packet. That was my production server and my heart is still rapidly beating.


IUS offers an installation script for subscribing to their repository and importing associated GPG keys. Make sure you’re in your home directory, and retrieve the script using curl:

curl 'https://setup.ius.io/' -o setup-ius.sh
sudo bash setup-ius.sh

Install Required Packages-:

sudo yum install -y mod_php70u php70u-cli php70u-mysqlnd php70u-json php70u-gd php70u-dom php70u-simplexml php70u-mcrypt php70u-intl