This tutorial will show you how to install PHP on Ubuntu in a couple of simple steps. There is some additional information added for those of You that are using Nginx to make sure it is working correctly.
Requirements
In order to follow this tutorial you will need the following things:
- server running on Linux Ubuntu(I am personally using Amazon AWS and Google Cloud)
- root access
Connect to your server
Connect to the server first using SSH. If you are on the Linux or Mac it is a matter of seconds, on Windows you would be using Putty or web browser(Amazon AWS and GCP offer that).
Start with the customer – find out what they want and give it to them.


Prepare your server
First of all get a
sudo su
Update the Linux:
apt-get update && apt-get upgrade
Surely check if there is PHP already installed:
php -v
If your system says that it is already PHP installed and your PHP code is not working(for example contact form) then you might need to install only some additional packages.
Install desired packages
For a list of the packages available:
apt-cache search --names-only ^php
Installing some popular modules:
apt-get install php-pear php7.0-dev php7.0-zip php7.0-curl php7.0-gd php7.0-mysql php7.0-mcrypt php7.0-xml
Yes, you guessed it right - you can choose your PHP version at this stage


Using Nginx? Check this out
Nginx
has no native processing for PHP so you will have to install fpm:
sudo apt-get install php-fpm php-mysql
Once it is installed adjust the configuration by uncommenting cgi.fix_pathinfo and setting it to "0":
sudo nano /etc/php/7.0/fpm/php.ini
Restart both Nginx and fpm to apply changes:
sudo systemctl restart php7.0-fpm
Remember to update your Nginx config in sites-available
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/your-site.com
by adding:
location ~ \.php$ {
include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.0-fpm.sock;
}
location ~ /\.ht {
deny all;
}
Then restart Nginx:
service nginx restart
Test your PHP
sudo nano /var/www/html/info.php
Simply paste this inside:
<?php
phpinfo();
Now simply access your config through the web browser by entering:
www.your-site.com/info.php
if you are not using a domain yet you can type:
your.server.ip/info.php
Remember to remove the file with config info to avoid sharing your PHP info with some random hackers;)
References
I am not an expert and this tutorial was created to gather all useful info about the topic in one place. The following resources are recommended if you want to learn more:
- How To Install Linux, Nginx, MySQL, PHP (
- How to install PHP (7 or 7.2) on Ubuntu
- The main PPA for supported PHP versions with many PECL extensions *****
If you need any help feel free to contact me.
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