How to install Laravel 5.5 + PHP 7.1 with Apache on CentOS 7

You can install Apache 2 easily using “yum” with the following command:

# yum install httpd

After the installation process is finished you can use the commands below to start your Apache service and make it run at startup:

# systemctl start httpd
# systemctl enable httpd

Install PHP 7.1 

PHP 7.1 is not provided by the official RHEL repository so you have to add “Webtatic” repo in order to install it easily.

First, install EPEL repository with the following command:

# yum install epel-release

Now you can add the Webtatic repo:

# rpm -Uvh https://mirror.webtatic.com/yum/el7/webtatic-release.rpm

Update your repository list with the command below:

# yum repolist

execute the command below to easily install PHP 7.1 and the needed extensions:

# yum install php71w php71w-common php71w-gd php71w-phar php71w-xml php71w-cli php71w-mbstring php71w-tokenizer php71w-openssl php71w-pdo

Download Composer

For installing the latest version of Laravel we need to get the Composer dependency manager:

# curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php

Execute the following command to move your Composer binary file to the executable path:

# mv composer.phar /usr/bin/composer

Now you can run the command below to download and install Laravel directly into your Apache document root:

# composer create-project laravel/laravel /var/www/html/laravel

Set the correct DocumentRoot

Open the HTTPD global configuration file:

# nano /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

Find the line that refers to:

# DocumentRoot "/var/www/html"

and change it like below:

# DocumentRoot "/var/www/html/laravel/public"

Then save and exit.

Restart Apache to take effect:

# systemctl restart httpd

Set the Permissions

Execute the following command one by one to set the proper permissions:

# chown -R apache:apache /var/www/html/laravel
# chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/laravel/storage

If your Firewall is active you should execute the following commands in order to allow HTTP and HTTPS ports:

# firewall-cmd –permanent –add-port=80/tcp
# firewall-cmd –permanent –add-port=443/tcp

Test if everything works fine

Now you can open your browser and check through, public IP address or your Domain.

You should see a page like below:

 

And you can verify that you installed Laravel 5.5 with the following command:

cd /var/www/html/laravel
php artisan -V