PHP 7 on CentOS 7.4 - php

Question

I am trying to set up a web server to host Moodle on and I've been running into problems when trying to install PHP7.
I am currently using VirtualBox to host CentOS 7.4. By default, CentOS comes packaged with PHP 5.4.16. Now, from what I have read, the options for upgrading and installing from scratch are different. I have tried to follow multiple sites that guide towards getting PHP7 but have had no luck. The majority of guides tell you to install two repositories, Remi and EPEL. The main problem I have is that every time I install epel, yum either breaks or prevents me from installing another package.
[root#localhost ~]# yum update
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror, langpacks
Could not retrieve mirrorlist http://mirrorlist.centos.org/?
release=7&arch=x86_64&repo=os&infra=stock error was
14: curl#6 - "Could not resolve host: mirrorlist.centos.org; Unknown error"
One of the configured repositories failed (Unknown),
and yum doesn't have enough cached data to continue. At this point the only
safe thing yum can do is fail. There are a few ways to work "fix" this:
1. Contact the upstream for the repository and get them to fix the problem.
2. Reconfigure the baseurl/etc. for the repository, to point to a working
upstream. This is most often useful if you are using a newer
distribution release than is supported by the repository (and the
packages for the previous distribution release still work).
3. Run the command with the repository temporarily disabled
yum --disablerepo=<repoid> ...
4. Disable the repository permanently, so yum won't use it by default. Yum
will then just ignore the repository until you permanently enable it
again or use --enablerepo for temporary usage:
yum-config-manager --disable <repoid>
or
subscription-manager repos --disable=<repoid>
5. Configure the failing repository to be skipped, if it is unavailable.
Note that yum will try to contact the repo. when it runs most commands,
so will have to try and fail each time (and thus. yum will be be much
slower). If it is a very temporary problem though, this is often a nice
compromise:
yum-config-manager --save --setopt=<repoid>.skip_if_unavailable=true
Cannot find a valid baseurl for repo: base/7/x86_64
I have tried many ways of fixing this. Some of the main ways are:
yum clean all
yum --enablerepo=base clean metadata
rm -rf /var/cache/yum
I did get around this once or twice by using
yum --enablerepo=epel clean metadata
and also
sed -i "s/mirrorlist=https/mirrorlist=http/" /etc/yum.repos.d/epel.repo
I know there are more ways that I have tried, but I cannot remember all of them. Moral of the story is that they don't usually help. Sometimes yum works fine and I will run yum clean all, and it stops functioning again.
Method 2:
Another method I tried was installing the rpm packages from their respective websites. I used WinSCP to transfer the files to my VM and then used yum to install them. Everything works well and I got epel and remi to install. But then yum doesn't work properly.
Sometimes it will install packages, but some will not install. I've set the yum timeout value higher and other packages get through, but some still do not. Then I clean up the yum cache and once again I see the message with five options.
Method 3:
I found documentation on installing PHP 7 from https://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/php7 and I thought it must work because this is the supported way.
I followed along right up until the first part.
root # centos7-vm: ~ # yum -y install centos-release-scl.noarch
I will either get the error message stating the package could not be downloaded from a mirror or if yum is already giving me issues, it will show the five options to clean yum.
Method 4:
Building PHP from source was another option I attempted. I navigated to http://php.net/downloads.php and downloaded the tarball and used WinSCP to get it on my machine.
I extracted the files and then navigated into the php directory.
I attempted to get things going by using ./configure, but it stated I needed gcc.
I tried to install gcc with yum install gcc, but could not install all of the packages.
I made a new VM and instantly tried installing gcc, but still not luck.
Summary
Sometimes I understand why yum does not work, other times I'm slamming my head on my desk.
Is there a standardized method of getting PHP 7 on CentOS? Can anyone link an accurate guide?
What is the reason that CentOS comes packaged with PHP 5.4 and not 7?
I feel like I have tried almost everything, but I know there is some webpage that I just haven't found yet. I think I did about all the research I possibly could for today.
I'm sure my question is probably not structured the best and might be a little confusing, but I've been working on this for about 6-7 hours now.
This is my first post, so I apologize if it is not perfect.

Answer 1

in my vps, I just added remi repo,
$ wget http://rpms.famillecollet.com/enterprise/remi-release-7.rpm
$ rpm -Uvh remi-release-7.rpm
or
$ rpm -Uvh http://rpms.famillecollet.com/enterprise/remi-release-7.rpm
then you enable on /etc/yum.repos.d/ on remi.repo, and remi-php72.repo files.
later you update, and install php and its libraries.
epel is not necesary, but is in the official repo. you just got to do a
$ yum install epel-release
and enable the file in /etc/yum.repos.d/
have you check some logs files? to see if there's any errors