Install PHP 8.5 on Rocky Linux

EPEL and Remi repositories

Rocky Linux ships a stable but often older PHP in the base AppStream repository. For newer builds the community path is two extra repositories: EPEL for dependencies and Remi for fresh PHP builds.

Enable both repositories with the repository tool before installing, then the install step below can see the newer packages. This is a one time setup per machine.

Install php-cli with dnf

Install the command line package with dnf:

Install the PHP command line package

sudo dnf install -y php-cli

Complete!

The -y flag answers yes to the install prompt, so the command runs without stopping. Accept the extra dependency list: those are libraries PHP needs to run.

Verify with php -v

Check what was installed with one command:

Show the installed PHP version

php -v

PHP 8.5.0 (cli) (built: Nov 2026) (NTS) Copyright (c) The PHP Group

The first line confirms the version and the command line build. If the terminal answers that the command was not found, the install step above did not finish.

Version notes

If the installed version is older than 8.5, switch the enabled Remi module stream to the 8.5 branch and install php-cli again. Every example in this course also runs on PHP 8.1 and newer, so a slightly older build is fine for learning.

Next: Install PHP 8.5 on macOS

Article author: Arthur Isaev