Installing PHP on a Linux system is usually straightforward, but sometimes users may encounter issues that can hinder the completion of the installation process. Before we start, please ensure that you’ve followed the instructions outlined in this article.

Permissions issue

Change permissions for the document root (var/www/html).

sudo chmod -R 777 /var/www/html

Enable short open tags

Find out php.ini location.

php --ini

Edit php.ini

Syntax

sudo nano /etc/php/<version>/cli/php.ini

Example

sudo nano /etc/php/8.1/cli/php.ini

Setting short_open_tag to On in the PHP configuration allows PHP code to be written with short tags (<? ?>) instead of the standard <?php ?> tags.

short_open_tag = On

To apply the changes, you need to restart the Apache web server.

sudo service apache2 restart

Possible issue

If the previous steps don’t work, try this.

Change permissions to full access to everyone.

sudo chmod -R 777 /etc/php/8.1/apache2

or use a safer approach to limit permissions to access the files within the apache2 directory. Then verify if the change has taken effect.

sudo chmod -R 644 /etc/php/8.1/apache2/php.ini

Edit php.ini file.

sudo nano /etc/php//apache2/php.ini

Set short_open_tag to On

short_open_tag = On

Restart Apache service

sudo service apache2 restart

Conclusion

This article discusses common problems related to PHP installation and the execution of the first script.