How to migrate from PHP 7.0 to PHP 7.2 in five minutes.
1. Add PPA ondrej/php
We use Ondřej Surý’s awesome PHP PPA. It already has PHP 7.2, so we’ll add the PPA and update the package information.
Ubuntu
add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php
apt-get update
Debian
apt install apt-transport-https lsb-release ca-certificates
wget -O /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/php.gpg https://packages.sury.org/php/apt.gpg
sh -c 'echo "deb https://packages.sury.org/php/ $(lsb_release -sc) main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/php.list'
apt-get update
2. Current PHP packages
This only applies if you are upgrading from a previous version. Note down the current PHP packages you have, so we can reinstall them for PHP 7.2.
dpkg -l | grep php | tee packages.txt
This will save your current packages to packages.txt file in your working directory.
3. Install PHP 7.2
apt-get install php7.2 php7.2-common php7.2-cli php7.2-fpm
This will install the bare basic packages you’d need to get started with PHP 7.2. Note that php7.2-fpm package is used for your web server integration. If you are using Apache with prefork MPM (type apachectl -V to see the MPM used), you’d need to install libapache2-mod-php7.2 instead of php7.2-fpm.
4. Install additional modules
Take a look at the packages.txt file we created at step 2, and install the additional PHP packages. Your packages.txt file will show packages such as php7.0-mbstring, and you need to install their PHP 7.2 counterpart (php7.2-mbstring for example).
You can generate a command that can be run later using this line.
apt-get install $(cat packages.txt | awk '{ apt-get install gsub("7.0", "7.2", $2); print $2 }' | tr '\n' ' ' | sed 's/php7.2-mcrypt //g')
5. Web server configuration
Apache with php-fpm
Before we remove the old PHP packages, make sure that your web server correctly uses the PHP 7.2 sockets/modules. If you installed php7.2-fpm above, and using Apache, a2enconf php7.2-fpm will make Apache use PHP 7.2 FPM. Type a2disconf php7.0-fpm to disable existing FPM configurations.
Apache with mod_php
You can disable the current PHP integration with a2dismod php7.0 (or your current version) and enable new PHP 7.2 module with a2enmod php7.2.
6. Remove old versions
If everything is working well (check your phpinfo() and php -i), you can remove the old packages:
apt-get purge php7.0*
Of course, change php7.0 with all old versions you no longer need.
Enjoy your shiny new PHP 7.2!
