Learn How To Install PHP 7.3 on an Arch Linux Webserver

May 11, 2019

Table of Contents

Prerequisites

https://www.itweb.services/tutorials/linux-guides/installing-2019-arch-linux-on-a-itweb.services-server”>this article.)

https://www.itweb.services/tutorials/linux-guides/how-to-install-nginx-1-14-on-arch-linux”>Nginx

  • Sudo access.
    • Commands required to be ran as root are prefixed by #. The recommended way to run commands as root is to, as a regular user, prefix each of them with sudo.
  • Have a text editor installed, and be familiar with it, such as vi, vim, nano, emacs or a similar editor
  • Install PHP 7.3 On Your Webserver

    Install PHP and FastCGI for PHP:

    # pacman -S php-fpm
    

    Visit PHP’s timezone list

    Set your timezone. For example, if you chose the category “America” and wanted to use “New_York”, edit /etc/php/php.ini and set the following:

    date.timezone = America/New_York
    

    Start FastCGI for PHP, and make it start after every boot:

    # systemctl enable --now php-fpm
    

    Configure PHP for your webserver.

    For Apache

    Create the file /etc/httpd/conf/extra/php-fpm.conf, with the following contents. Make sure to copy this exactly as-is; a common error is putting spaces around the pipe character, but this is not a shell command, and there can be no spaces:

    DirectoryIndex index.php index.html
    <FilesMatch .php$>
        SetHandler "proxy:unix:/run/php-fpm/php-fpm.sock|fcgi://localhost/"
    </FilesMatch>
    

    Allow Apache to use FastCGI by editing /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf, and add the following to the end of the LoadModule list:

    LoadModule proxy_module modules/mod_proxy.so
    LoadModule proxy_fcgi_module modules/mod_proxy_fcgi.so
    

    To allow using .php files on all websites hosted by Apache, edit /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf, and add this to the end. If you’re running multiple host directories; for example, virtual hosts, or separate HTTP/HTTPS directories; and you want to only allow .php files on some of them, edit their configuration files. Within the VirtualHost block, add the following:

    Include conf/extra/php-fpm.conf
    

    Finally, restart Apache:

    # systemctl restart httpd
    

    For Nginx

    Allow Nginx to use FastCGI for PHP by creating the file /etc/nginx/php.conf with the following contents:

    # Correctly handle request like /test.php/foo/blah.php or /test.php/
    fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+?.php)(/.*)$;
    try_files $uri $document_root$fastcgi_script_name =404;
    # Mitigate <nowiki>https://httpoxy.org/</nowiki> vulnerabilities
    fastcgi_param HTTP_PROXY "";
    fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php-fpm/php-fpm.sock;
    fastcgi_index index.php;
    fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
    include fastcgi_params;
    

    Allow Nginx to use FastCGI by editing /etc/nginx/nginx.conf, and to every server block you want to use PHP with, add the following. Alternatively, if you are using virtual hosts, edit each host’s configuration file:

    location ~ .php$ {
        root         /usr/share/nginx/html/;
        include      php.conf;
    }
    

    Restart Nginx:

    # systemctl restart nginx
    

    Test PHP

    Within the appropriate directory, create test.php with the following contents:

    <?php phpinfo(); ?>
    

    In a web browser, visit http://YOUR-SERVER-WEB-ADDRESS-OR-IP/test.php, and you will see a webpage with your PHP version and configuration.

    Remember to delete the test.php test file you just created.

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