Update PHP 7.x to 7.4 CentOS 7 Remi Repo

WordPress 5.4 has been reminding admins to update PHP to 7.4. Even if you are on PHP 7.1 you will receive the message in your dashboard. Here are the instructions to upgrade from PHP 7.1 Remi Repo on Centos 7.

READ FIRST — IMPORTANT !!!
Get a complete backup snapshot of your server before you complete these update steps

1. First thing you should do is do any core OS updates and package updates.

# yum update -y

2. Check which version of PHP you are currently running.

# php -v
PHP 7.1.33 (cli) (built: Oct 26 2019 10:16:23) ( NTS )
Copyright (c) 1997-2018 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v3.1.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2018 Zend Technologies

3. Print a list to see all the PHP packages you have installed. You will need to replace all these packages in PHP 7.4. You should copy this list to a file so you can refer to it if you need to. Make a note of the version of PHP here (7x or 7-x).

# rpm -qa | grep php

php71w-xml-7.1.33-1.w7.x86_64
mod_php71w-7.1.33-1.w7.x86_64
php71w-gd-7.1.33-1.w7.x86_64
php71w-mcrypt-7.1.33-1.w7.x86_64
php71w-pdo-7.1.33-1.w7.x86_64
php71w-mysqlnd-7.1.33-1.w7.x86_64
php71w-mbstring-7.1.33-1.w7.x86_64
php71w-common-7.1.33-1.w7.x86_64
php71w-cli-7.1.33-1.w7.x86_64

# rpm -qa | grep php > php_rpm.txt

4. Remove PHP core and all the installed PHP packages.

# yum remove "php*" -y

--> Running transaction check
---> Package php71w-cli.x86_64 0:7.1.33-1.w7 will be erased
---> Package php71w-common.x86_64 0:7.1.33-1.w7 will be erased
---> Package php71w-gd.x86_64 0:7.1.33-1.w7 will be erased
---> Package php71w-mbstring.x86_64 0:7.1.33-1.w7 will be erased
---> Package php71w-mcrypt.x86_64 0:7.1.33-1.w7 will be erased
---> Package php71w-mysqlnd.x86_64 0:7.1.33-1.w7 will be erased
---> Package php71w-pdo.x86_64 0:7.1.33-1.w7 will be erased
---> Package php71w-xml.x86_64 0:7.1.33-1.w7 will be erased
--> Finished Dependency Resolution

…

Removed:
php71w-cli.x86_64 0:7.1.33-1.w7        php71w-common.x86_64 0:7.1.33-1.w7      php71w-gd.x86_64 0:7.1.33-1.w7      php71w-mbstring.x86_64 0:7.1.33-1.w7
php71w-mcrypt.x86_64 0:7.1.33-1.w7     php71w-mysqlnd.x86_64 0:7.1.33-1.w7     php71w-pdo.x86_64 0:7.1.33-1.w7     php71w-xml.x86_64 0:7.1.33-1.w7

5. Install the updated remi repository if it is not already installed.

# yum install -y http://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/remi-release-7.rpm

Downloading packages:
Running transaction check
Running transaction test
Transaction test succeeded
Running transaction
Installing : remi-release-7.7-2.el7.remi.noarch                                                                                                        1/1
Verifying  : remi-release-7.7-2.el7.remi.noarch                                                                                                        1/1
Installed:
remi-release.noarch 0:7.7-2.el7.remi

6. Check out a list of all available remi packages (not-required)

# yum repolist remi-safe

7. Disable PHP 7.x and enable PHP 7.4 (Replace x with sub-version of your previously installed version noted above in step 3) and install any extra packages you want / need.

# yum --disablerepo=remi-php7x --enablerepo=remi-php74 install php php-pdo php-fpm php-gd php-mbstring php-mysql php-curl php-mcrypt php-json -y

8. Check the updated PHP version.

# php -v
PHP 7.4.8 (cli) (built: Jul  9 2020 08:57:23) ( NTS )
Copyright (c) The PHP Group
Zend Engine v3.4.0, Copyright (c) Zend Technologies

9. Restart Apache to use the newly installed PHP 7.4

# systemctl restart httpd

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