Install PHP8 on Ubuntu Server 18 & 20 LTS Running Apache

This post is a quick post to serve as a note, don’t expect long explanations of general LAMP stack design concepts. If you encounter any issues feel free to leave a comment below.

Step 1: Bash Into root User

sudo bash 
#("sudo -su" if you prefer)

Enter your password to enter the root superuser account.

Step 2: Preparation

As root enter

apt-get update -y && apt-get upgrade -y && apt-get dist-upgrade -y && apt-get autoremove -y && apt-get autoclean -y

Step 3: Adding PHP8 Repository

apt-get install ca-certificates apt-transport-https software-properties-common -y

Once the command above completes its process:

add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php -y && apt-get update -y

Step 4: Installing PHP8

apt-get install php8.0 libapache2-mod-php8.0 -y && systemctl restart apache2 

apt-get install php8.0-fpm libapache2-mod-fcgid

Enable default PHP8 FastCGI manager module and config:

a2enmod proxy_fcgi setenvif

a2enconf php8.0-fpm

Restart Apache:

systemctl restart apache2

You might need these as well… MySQL, MBString, and MailParse

apt-get install php8.0-mbstring php8.0-mailparse php8.0-mysql php8.0-xml php8.0-zip -y

WordPress Modules

apt-get install php8.0-imagick -y

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To get jiggy with it… (installs all PHP modules, typically reserved for DevOps/Sandboxing)

apt-get install php8.0-dev

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Once you’re done with installing any additional modules, although not required, it’s recommended you reboot your machine. Let’s do a little cleanup in case something unnecessary (like previous PHP7 packages) was left behind.

apt-get update -y && apt-get upgrade -y && dist-upgrade -y && apt-get autoclean -y && apt-get autoremove -y && reboot

Step 5 (Optional): Additional Caching Modules

Memcached

apt-get install php8.0-memcached

Redis

apt-get install php8.0-redis