How to Install PHP 8.0 on Rocky Linux 8

PHP 8.0 is a significant update of the PHP language released on November 26, 2020, a giant leap forward from the existing PHP 7.4 release. The new PHP contains many new features and optimizations, including named arguments, union types, attributes, constructor property promotion, match expression, null safe operators, JIT and improvements in the type system, error handling, and consistency.

In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install PHP 8.0 on Rocky Linux 8.

Prerequisites

• Recommended OS: Rocky Linux 8.+.
• User account: A user account with sudo or root access.
• Required Packages: remi repository

Update Operating System

Update your Rocky Linux operating system to make sure all existing packages are up to date:

sudo dnf upgrade --refresh -y

The tutorial will be using the sudo command and assuming you have sudo status.

To verify sudo status on your account:

sudo whoami

Example output showing sudo status:

[joshua@rockylinux ~]$ sudo whoami
root

To set up an existing or new sudo account, visit our tutorial on How to Add a User to Sudoers on Rocky Linux.

To use the root account, use the following command with the root password to log in.

su

Install PHP 8.0 Remi Repository

Currently, PHP 8.0 is not featured in Rocky Linux’s AppStream, given it’s still relatively new and hasn’t filtered down the chain in Rhel’s repositories yet. However, you can install PHP from (Remi) repository, a free-to-use third-party repository that deploys the latest PHP 8.0 and includes the incoming PHP 8.1.

The first task is to install the (EPEL) repository, which stands for (Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux). For newer users to Rhel and Rocky Linux, EPEL contains the most commonly used software packages for Enterprise Linux.

To install EPEL, use the following (dnf) terminal command:

sudo dnf install epel-release

Example output:

Type “Y,” then press the “ENTER KEY” to proceed with the installation.

Now that you have added the EPEL repository, enable (Remi repository) with the following:

sudo dnf install dnf-utils http://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/remi-release-8.rpm

Example output:

Type “Y,” then press the “ENTER KEY” to proceed with the installation.

Next, use the (dnf) command to update your repository list:

sudo dnf update

You will notice a query in your terminal about importing the (GPG key) for the Remi repository as below:

Type “Y,” then press the “ENTER KEY” to proceed with importing the GPG key and completing the installation.

Note, you will be prompt x2 more times to type “Y” to import more GPG keys. This is fine to do.

Enable PHP 8.0 (Remi) Repository

PHP 7.2 is the default PHP choice for standard installation on Rhel/Rocky Linux with Remi’s repository. A quick tip is to use the (list php) command to see the options available and the default. The following command can do this:

sudo dnf module list php

You will get the following output as below. Note the (d) tag for default PHP to be installed:

As you can see above, the (d) tag is next to PHP 7.2, which you will need to reset and change to install PHP 8.0 on Rocky Linux.

To reset the PHP list is easy with the following command:

sudo dnf module list reset php

Next, enable PHP 8.0 with the following command:

sudo dnf module enable php:remi-8.0 -y

Example output:

Install PHP 8.0

Now that you have added the Remi PHP repository and enabled PHP 8.0 to be the default version on your Rocky Linux system, you can install PHP 8.0 with the following command:

sudo dnf install php

Example output:

If you would like to install the most commonly used extensions for PHP 8.0, use the following command:

sudo dnf install php-cli php-fpm php-curl php-mysqlnd php-gd php-opcache php-zip php-intl php-common php-bcmath php-imap php-imagick php-xmlrpc php-json php-readline php-memcached php-redis php-mbstring php-apcu php-xml

Note, remove the options you do not want this is optional. For the guide, we installed the entire lot as below:

Now that you have installed PHP 8.0 and the extensions check the version with the following command:

php -v

Example output below, remember this will change in time:

PHP-FPM Installations of PHP 8.0

Unlike PHP-FPM installations on Debian/Ubuntu that use the (www-data) user, this isn’t the case with RHEL family installations. By default on AlmaLinux, the PHP-FPM service is designed to be run (Apache) user, which is incorrect since we are using Nginx, and this needed to be corrected.

Firstly, open following (www.conf) configuration file:

sudo nano /etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf

Next, replace the (Apache) user and group with the (Nginx) user and group:

To save, press (CTRL+O) then exit (CTRL+X).

Now you will too reload or restart your PHP-FPM service:

sudo systemctl restart php-fpm

Comments and Conclusion

In the tutorial, you have learned about the (EPEL) repository and (Remi) repository and how to add them to your Rocky Linux system, along with installing PHP 8.0 from those repositories. Overall, PHP 8.0 is now starting to become pretty standard everywhere. With the development of the upcoming PHP 8.1, more developers are now making their web applications PHP 8 friendly, including the giant CMS WordPress with more theme and plugin devs racing to get PHP 8.0 supported given the advantages 8 has in security and speed compared the 7 series.

However, you should only install PHP 8.0 if you know your software supports it, as it will cause issues with your applications, so be sure to check. If you know how to install Rocky Linux 8, check out our guide to installing Rocky Linux 8.