Installing PHP On Apache With Fedora

Setting up PHP with Apache on Fedora involves installing the PHP module, configuring Apache to process PHP files, and verifying the setup works correctly.

Install PHP and Apache

sudo dnf install httpd php php-fpm

# Start and enable Apache
sudo systemctl enable --now httpd

# If using PHP-FPM (recommended for modern Fedora)
sudo systemctl enable --now php-fpm

Configure Apache for PHP

On Fedora, Apache with PHP-FPM requires configuring the proxy:

# Create PHP-FPM configuration for Apache
sudo tee /etc/httpd/conf.d/php-fpm.conf > /dev/null << 'EOF'

    SetHandler "proxy:unix:/run/php-fpm/www.sock|fcgi://localhost"


# Enable directory index for PHP
DirectoryIndex index.php index.html
EOF

# Restart Apache
sudo systemctl restart httpd

Configure Firewall

sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-service=http
sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-service=https
sudo firewall-cmd --reload

Test PHP

echo '' | sudo tee /var/www/html/info.php

Open http://localhost/info.php in a browser. You should see the PHP information page. Remove it after testing:

sudo rm /var/www/html/info.php

Install Common PHP Extensions

# Database drivers
sudo dnf install php-mysqlnd php-pgsql php-sqlite

# Image processing
sudo dnf install php-gd php-imagick

# XML and JSON
sudo dnf install php-xml php-json

# MBString (multibyte strings, needed by WordPress)
sudo dnf install php-mbstring

# cURL (needed by many APIs and CMS platforms)
sudo dnf install php-curl

# OPcache (performance)
sudo dnf install php-opcache

# Intl (internationalization)
sudo dnf install php-intl

Restart PHP-FPM after installing extensions:

sudo systemctl restart php-fpm

PHP Configuration

Edit /etc/php.ini for common settings:

memory_limit = 256M
upload_max_filesize = 50M
post_max_size = 55M
max_execution_time = 300
date.timezone = Asia/Hong_Kong
display_errors = Off
error_reporting = E_ALL & ~E_DEPRECATED & ~E_STRICT

SELinux Configuration

Fedora enforces SELinux, which can block PHP from accessing files:

# Allow PHP to write to web directories
sudo setsebool -P httpd_unified on

# Allow PHP to connect to databases
sudo setsebool -P httpd_can_network_connect_db on

# Allow PHP to send email
sudo setsebool -P httpd_can_sendmail on

# Check SELinux context of web files
ls -laZ /var/www/html/

Virtual Host Configuration

Create a virtual host for your PHP application:

sudo tee /etc/httpd/conf.d/mysite.conf > /dev/null << 'EOF'

    ServerName mysite.local
    DocumentRoot /var/www/mysite/public

    
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    

    ErrorLog /var/log/httpd/mysite-error.log
    CustomLog /var/log/httpd/mysite-access.log combined

EOF

sudo systemctl restart httpd

Quick Reference

sudo dnf install httpd php php-fpm — Install
php -v — Check PHP version
/etc/php.ini — PHP configuration
/etc/httpd/conf.d/ — Apache site configs
sudo systemctl restart httpd php-fpm — Apply changes

PHP Version Management on Fedora

Fedora ships a single PHP version in the default repositories. To run multiple PHP versions:

# Install Remi repository for multiple PHP versions
sudo dnf install https://rpms.remirepo.net/fedora/remi-release-latest.rpm
sudo dnf module reset php
sudo dnf module install php:remi-8.3
php -v

PHP-FPM Pool Configuration

For production, tune PHP-FPM pool settings in the configuration file:

[www]
pm = dynamic
pm.max_children = 50
pm.start_servers = 5
pm.min_spare_servers = 3
pm.max_spare_servers = 35
pm.max_requests = 500

Use pm = dynamic for most sites, or pm = ondemand for low-traffic sites to save memory.

Enable HTTPS with Let Encrypt

sudo dnf install certbot python3-certbot-apache
sudo certbot --apache -d yourdomain.com

Certbot automatically configures Apache with SSL and sets up automatic renewal. PHP works identically over HTTP and HTTPS without configuration changes.

Installing PHP on Apache with Fedora