PHP stands for Hypertext Preprocessor. It is one of the oldest server-side programming language used to create Dynamic and Responsive Web-App.

The most popular CMS and frameworks like WordPress, Magento, Joomla, Drupal, and Laravel are written in PHP Language.

In this guide, we will cover on how to Install PHP on Ubuntu 20.04 or 18.04 with the Apache and Nginx web-server.

What we will cover

• Install PHP 7.4 with Apache on Ubuntu.
• Install PHP 7.4 with Nginx on Ubuntu.
• Install PHP extension or modules.
• Run PHP File.

Install PHP 7.4 with Apache on Ubuntu

If you need to install PHP 7.4 with Apache webserver, you can easily Install it from the Ubuntu repositories using the following commands:

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install php libapache2-mod-php

To verify whether PHP is installed in your system, with the PHP version check command:

$ php -V

After the package gets installed, you need to restart the Apache server with the command:

$ sudo systemctl restart apache2

Install PHP with Nginx on Ubuntu

When you want to Install Nginx over the Apache server, you can follow the simple steps.

Before Installing Nginx, make sure to remove Apache2 from your Ubuntu System to avoid any clashes:

Remove Apache 2 from Ubuntu

To remove Apache from Ubuntu pass the set of command in your Terminal

Step 1. First step is to stop Apache service:

$ sudo systemctl stop apache2.service

Step 2. In this step we will purge and autoremove to apache2:

$ sudo apt purge apache2
$ sudo apt autoremove

After completing the above step, we can Install Nginx on Ubuntu follow the steps.

Install Nginx on Ubuntu

To Install Nginx you can download from the Ubuntu Official repository or You can Install from the Source file.

In this instance, we will Install Nginx using the simple command:

$ sudo apt install nginx

After that, you need to start the Nginx server while Installing Nginx to start type:

$ sudo systemctl start nginx.service
$ sudo systemctl status nginx

Nginx is installed in your Ubuntu System, and We will Install PHP with the FPM package:

$ sudo apt install php-fpm

If your thinking about why we are Installing FPM (FastCGI process manager) module with PHP. The reason is simple Nginx directly cannot process the PHP file. So, we to Install fpm manually with PHP to process the file.

Configure Nginx Default

To process PHP file in Nginx web-server you need to configure “default” Config file.

Open your terminal and type or do-copy paste the following command:

$ sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/default

In this file, you need to uncomment a few lines as per the below screenshot and save the file.

With Comment

After Uncomment

A last step is to restart the nginx and php7.4- fpm with following command:

$ sudo systemctl restart php7.4-fpm
$ sudo systemctl restart nginx

Install PHP extension or modules

From all the above steps, we know How to Install PHP with Apache and Ngnix.

This is the optional step If you want to Install Major modules that Larvel servers require, such as

$ sudo apt install php7.4-common php7.4-bcmath openssl php7.4-json php7.4-mbstring

For any-other module you can refer to documentation.

Run PHP file on Ubuntu

All the above we have configured the webserver now it’s time to run to PHP file. Before that, we need to create a PHP file In the “/var/www/html” directory.

Open terminal and type the following code

 $ sudo nano /var/www/html/demo.php

Save and close the file and Open the Web-Browser and type your IP address or http://localhost/ with the filename.php

In my case, I have run a PHP file on my local computer So, I have typed the localhost address with the PHP filename.

We have use the function phpinfo() to get the PHP configuration of my web-sever.

Wrap Up

That’s it to Install PHP on Ubuntu with Apache or Nginx server. If you are stuck somewhere or need any assistance, please comment down.

If you want to install PHP using the XAMPP server on Your Ubuntu Machine, Click on Learn more.