Command line PHP overview

 

Overview

The following explains how to use the command line to find related information about the PHP version your server is using.

Prerequisites

To run the commands in this article, you must configure a Shell user and log into your server via SSH.

Finding the PHP locations

The paths for the default DreamHost PHP-CLI installed binaries are as follows:

  • PHP 8.1 — /usr/local/php81/bin/php
  • PHP 8.2 — /usr/local/php82/bin/php
  • PHP 8.3 — /usr/local/php83/bin/php
  • PHP 8.4 — /usr/local/php84/bin/php

DreamHost maintains convenient shortcuts for all PHP versions in the /usr/local/bin/ directory:

lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    16 Apr 12 13:11 php-8.1 -> ../php81/bin/php
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    16 Apr 13 11:11 php-8.2 -> ../php82/bin/php
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    16 Apr 12 11:33 php-8.3 -> ../php83/bin/php
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    16 Apr 13 11:33 php-8.4 -> ../php84/bin/php

The /usr/local/bin directory is included in the shell path for users by default, so you can use the shortcuts instead of the full path to the binaries.

How to obtain PHP version information

This section explains how to view the specific versions of PHP and the modules installed with it.

Checking the PHP version

Run this command to view the default PHP-CLI version running on your server:

[server]$ php -v

You can view the exact version number by executing a specific binary. For example:

[server]$ php-8.3 -v

Checking installed modules

You can determine which PHP modules are installed for a specific version of PHP by running the following command:

[server]$ /usr/local/php83/bin/php -m

See also

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