Install PHP 7.2 on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Running Apache2, Percona MySQL

In our previous guides, we installed Percona MySQL 5.7 on Ubuntu 18.04, then installed Apache2 with Let’s Encrypt and enabled HSTS, HTTP/2. Now, We Will Install PHP 7.2 on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Running Apache2, Percona MySQL. That will create a typical LAMP server setup, enough to run PHP-MySQL web applications like WordPress. This tutorial can be used for cloud server, VPS, dedicated server. Dedicate server’s optimization only will differ.

Updates :

This article is for configuring APC.

This guide is an update to this article for installing PHP 7.4.

Steps to Install PHP 7.2 on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

We will use Ondřej Surý’s PPA :

After that part is complete, simply run :

By default, latest PHP will be installed. After installation is complete, run :

Which will return this kind of output :

Now, we have to install some of the PHP modules to run most of the PHP-MySQL applications, or WordPress with different plugins :

It will take some time. You can search modules for PHP 7.2 by running :

We actually installed most of them. Now go to your public HTML directory and create a PHP info page, like :

Copy paste this in that file :

Save the file. Open browser and point to that info.php, file on browser, which will show you an informative page :

Do not forget to delete that php.info file :

Update Ubuntu search database by running :

Then search PHP settings file :

There are lot of PHP ini files, which will be used by your web application? We can run :

You’ll get output like this :

Actually, /etc/php/7.2/cli/php.ini is for CLI. See that php.ini file on browser, there it is written :

Loaded Configuration File /etc/php/7.2/apache2/php.ini

So, essentially we have to tweak, optimize both files. Now install APCu :

We are creating the settings file of APCu (alternatively, you can open /etc/php/7.2/mods-available/cache.ini and add extension=apcu.so ) :

And make a symlink :

Now restart Apache :

APCu makes codes faster by caching. Alternate method of installing APCu (example is for PHP 7.4) :

You can read further settings :

This is basic setup. You can search our website for PHP’s caching optimization with keywords like en Opcache, Opcache etc. But this much is basic need. Some settings of PHP ini also need minimum change to increase upload limit via PHP-MySQL applications.