Install php 5.6 on centos 7

To install PHP 5.6, you have to install and enable EPEL and Remi repository to your CentOS 7 system using the commands below.

# yum install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm 
# yum install http://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/remi-release-7.rpm

Next, install yum-utils which is an assortment of utilities that integrate with yum to enhance its default features, giving it more advanced package management options and also making it easier to use. A few of its important features include manipulating repositories, enabling or disabling packages on the go and lots more, without any manual configurations.

# yum install yum-utils

One of the most important program provided by yum-utils is yum-config-manager, which you can use to active Remi repository as the default repository for installing various PHP versions. For example, if you want to install PHP 5.5, PHP 5.6 or PHP 7.2 on CentOS 7, just enable it and install as shown.

# yum-config-manager --enable remi-php55   [Install PHP 5.5]
# yum-config-manager --enable remi-php56   [Install PHP 5.6] 
# yum-config-manager --enable remi-php72   [Install PHP 7.2]

Now that you’ve enabled selected versions of PHP, you can install PHP (here, we have chosen to install PHP 5.6) with all needed modules as follows

# yum-config-manager --enable remi-php56   [Install PHP 5.6] 
# yum install php php-mcrypt php-cli php-gd php-curl php-mysql php-ldap php-zip php-fileinfo
OR
yum install -y php56w php56w-opcache php56w-xml php56w-mcrypt php56w-gd php56w-devel php56w-mysql php56w-intl php56w-mbstring

Afterwards, double check the installed version of PHP on your system.

# php -v