How to Upgrade PHP version 5.4 to 5.5 on CentOS/RHEL 5/6/7

By Anuket Jain On 16 May 2015 In Linux

PHP 5.5.0 has been released. The PHP improvement group is proud to report the immediate accessibility of PHP 5.5.0. This release includes countless of new features and bug fixes.

Features include in PHP 5.5.0 :

Included generators and coroutines.

Included the at last keyword.

Included an improved secret key hashing API.

Added support for constant array/string dereferencing.

Included scalar class name determination by means of ::class.

Included backing for utilizing empty() on the result of function calls and different expressions.

Included support for list() builds in for every statements.

Included the Zend OPcache extension for opcode reserving.

The GD library has been moved up to form 2.1 including new capacities and enhancing existing functionality and so on.

First we need to check the current version of PHP. To check the versio of PHP run following command:

# php -v

PHP 5.4.35 (cli) (built: Nov 14 2014 07:04:10)
Copyright (c) 1997-2014 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v2.6.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2015 Zend Technologies
    with Zend OPcache v7.0.4-dev, Copyright (c) 1999-2015, by Zend Technologies

To upgrade php, first you must include the Webtatic EL yum repository data relating to your CentOS/RHEL variant to yum:

For CentOS/RHEL 7:

# rpm -Uvh https://mirror.webtatic.com/yum/el7/epel-release.rpm
# rpm -Uvh https://mirror.webtatic.com/yum/el7/webtatic-release.rpm

For CentOS/RHEL 6:

# rpm -Uvh https://mirror.webtatic.com/yum/el6/latest.rpm

For CentOS/RHEL 5:

# rpm -Uvh http://mirror.webtatic.com/yum/el5/latest.rpm

After installing Webtatic yum repository, you have to remove the old version of php-common package. It will also delete it dependencies packages.

# yum remove php-common

Sample Output:

Dependencies Resolved

===================================================================================
 Package             Arch          Version                      Repository    Size
===================================================================================
Removing:
 php-common          x86_64        5.4.39-1.el6.remi            @remi        7.0 M
Removing for dependencies:
 php                 x86_64        5.4.39-1.el6.remi            @remi        9.1 M
 php-cli             x86_64        5.4.39-1.el6.remi            @remi         12 M
 php-devel           x86_64        5.4.39-1.el6.remi            @remi        8.1 M
 php-gd              x86_64        5.4.39-1.el6.remi            @remi        665 k
 php-ldap            x86_64        5.4.39-1.el6.remi            @remi        119 k
 php-mbstring        x86_64        5.4.39-1.el6.remi            @remi        2.5 M
 php-mcrypt          x86_64        5.4.39-1.el6.remi            @remi         86 k
 php-mysql           x86_64        5.4.39-1.el6.remi            @remi        452 k
 php-pdo             x86_64        5.4.39-1.el6.remi            @remi        348 k
 php-pear            noarch        1:1.9.5-9.el6.remi           @remi        2.0 M
 php-process         x86_64        5.4.39-1.el6.remi            @remi        128 k
 php-snmp            x86_64        5.4.39-1.el6.remi            @remi        107 k
 php-xml             x86_64        5.4.39-1.el6.remi            @remi        626 k

Transaction Summary
===================================================================================
Remove       14 Package(s)

Installed size: 43 M

Now we install PHP 5.5 using following command:

# yum -y install php55w php55w-opcache
# yum -y install php55w-xml php55w-mcrypt php55w-gd php55w-devel php55w-mysql php55w-intl php55w-mbstring

After installing PHP 5.5, we need to restart Apache service.

# /etc/init.d/httpd restart

After restarting Apache service check PHP version.

# php -v

PHP 5.5.23 (cli) (built: Apr 16 2015 22:49:36)
Copyright (c) 1997-2015 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v2.6.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2015 Zend Technologies
    with Zend OPcache v7.0.4-dev, Copyright (c) 1999-2015, by Zend Technologies

Comments

9 years ago
Abhay November 6, 2015
Good Post. Thanks
Reply
- 9 years ago
  Dennis R December 15, 2015
  Thanks.
  Reply
9 years ago
SKM February 23, 2016
Good Post.. helped me a lot..! Thanks…!
Reply
- 9 years ago
  Dennis R February 24, 2016
  Thanks.
  Reply
9 years ago
Flavio March 17, 2016
Good post!!! works on Centos 7
Reply
- 9 years ago
  Dennis R March 18, 2016
  Thanks Flavio
  Reply
9 years ago
YokiXml March 31, 2016
Excelent post. Thanks from spain.
Reply
8 years ago
Kaan June 14, 2016
Canımsın 🙂
Reply
8 years ago
KMC October 18, 2016
Thanks alot, this helped me!
Reply
8 years ago
Yuriu December 5, 2016
It works
Thanks.
Reply
8 years ago
peter December 29, 2016
Excellent guide. Thank you.
Reply
- 8 years ago
  Dennis R January 4, 2017
  Thanks
  Reply
8 years ago
nassim February 10, 2017
worked like a charm on centos 7 64bit
Reply
6 years ago
Anonymous November 8, 2018
Hi there,
the upgrade from 5.4.x to 5.5.x is removing the php-mysql package too.
now the question is, after the new installation of php 5.5.x with the given packages, do I have to set up new mysql-users ? or will my script be able to connect to mysql server as usual?
Cheers
Reply
- 6 years ago
  Dennis R January 15, 2019
  No, you do not need to create a MySQL user again.
  Reply