How to Install PHP on Debian 10 Linux

PHP is an open-source and widely used server-side programming language. This guide will walk you through the steps to install PHP 7.3 on Debian 10 Buster.

By default, Debian 10 ships with PHP version 7.3 and it supported in most popular CMS and frameworks such as WordPress, Magento, and Laravel.

Step 1 – Prerequisites#

You must be logged in as root or user with sudo privileges.

Step 2 – Update system#

Update the package index list, it’s recommend to update software repositories and install packages to sync with latest releases.

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

Step 3 – Install PHP on Debian 10#

At this step your system is up to date and ready to install PHP. Run the following command to install PHP 7.3.

Installing PHP with Apache#

sudo apt install php php-common libapache2-mod-php

Installing PHP with Nginx#

By default, Nginx doesn’t have a built-in support for processing PHP files. So we need to use PHP FPM service to handle the PHP files.

sudo apt install php php-common php-fpm

After that, you need to edit domain Nginx server block and add following lines to work PHP file using Nginx:

server {

    # . . . other code

    location ~ \.php$ {
        include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
        fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.3-fpm.sock;
    }
}

Save the configuration file and restart the nginx service for the new configuration take effect:

sudo systemctl restart nginx

Step 4 – Installing PHP Extensions#

You can install PHP extensions as per requirements. Run below command to install most common PHP extensions required for basic usage.

sudo apt install php-cli php-json php-pdo php-mysql php-zip php-gd  php-mbstring php-curl php-xml php-pear php-bcmath

Step 5 – Testing PHP#

Once the installation complete, you can verify version by typing:

php -v

PHP 7.3.3-1 (cli) (built: Mar  7 2019 19:43:34) ( NTS )
Copyright (c) 1997-2018 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v3.3.3, Copyright (c) 1998-2018 Zend Technologies
with Zend OPcache v7.3.3-1, Copyright (c) 1999-2018, by Zend Technologies

Conclusion#

You learned how to install PHP on Debian 10 and configure your webserver to process PHP files.

If you have any questions or suggestion, please leave a comment below.