How to 1) find out what version of php I'm using and 2) upgrade to the most current version

Hi @teresamwyss,

First, to check your php version, you just need to SSH to your droplet and type in

php -v

As for upgrading the PHP version, You can’t upgrade it, you can just install a new one.

To be able to install a certain PHP version, in this case, 7.4 you’ll need to add a certain repository to your system

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ondrej/php

Update the repository index.

sudo apt update

Install PHP 7.4 with the below command.

sudo apt install -y php7.4 php7.4-cli php7.4-common php7.4-fpm

To install extensions run

sudo apt install -y php7.4-mysql php7.4-dom php7.4-simplexml php7.4-ssh2 php7.4-xml php7.4-xmlreader php7.4-curl  php7.4-exif  php7.4-ftp php7.4-gd  php7.4-iconv php7.4-imagick php7.4-json  php7.4-mbstring php7.4-posix php7.4-sockets php7.4-tokenizer

The above are the required extensions for a simple WordPRess installation. Having said that it’s good to have these extensions as well.

sudo apt install -y php7.4-mysqli php7.4-pdo  php7.4-sqlite3 php7.4-ctype php7.4-fileinfo php7.4-zip php7.4-exif

That’s it, you now have the latest PHP version installed.