Automate PHP 7.3 Installation with Ansible

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Manually installing PHP across servers? Nah.

Let's make it boringly repeatable with Ansible.

This playbook snippet handles PHP 7.3 installation along with all the commonly used extensions.

No more apt install gymnastics on every new box.

Prerequisites

• Ubuntu server (18.04 or later works well)
• Ansible installed on your control machine
• SSH access to target machine(s)

What This Playbook Does

1. Adds the trusted Ondřej Surý PPA for PHP.
2. Installs php7.3.
3. Installs all commonly needed PHP 7.3 extensions.
4. Verifies the installation with php -v.

The Playbook

---
- name: Install PHP 7.3 and Extensions
  hosts: all
  become: true

  tasks:
    - name: Add PHP PPA repository
      apt_repository:
        repo: "ppa:ondrej/php"
        state: present
        update_cache: yes

    - name: Install PHP 7.3
      apt:
        name: php7.3
        state: present
        update_cache: yes

    - name: Verify PHP installation
      command: php -v
      register: php_version
      changed_when: false

    - name: Display PHP version
      debug:
        msg: "{{ php_version.stdout }}"

    - name: Install PHP 7.3 extensions and dependencies
      apt:
        name:
          - php7.3-bcmath
          - php7.3-bz2
          - php7.3-curl
          - php7.3-gd
          - php7.3-gmp
          - php7.3-imap
          - php7.3-intl
          - php7.3-json
          - php7.3-ldap
          - php7.3-mbstring
          - php7.3-mysql
          - php7.3-opcache
          - php7.3-readline
          - php7.3-soap
          - php7.3-sqlite3
          - php7.3-tidy
          - php7.3-xml
          - php7.3-xmlrpc
          - php7.3-xsl
          - php7.3-zip
          - php7.3-cli
          - php7.3-common
        state: present
        update_cache: yes

Running the Playbook

ansible-playbook -i hosts.ini php73.yml

Make sure your inventory (hosts.ini) is properly set up and includes the correct ansible_user and SSH access.

Output You Should See

You’ll get output like:

TASK [Verify PHP installation]
ok: [myserver]

TASK [Display PHP version]
ok: [myserver] => {
    "msg": "PHP 7.3.33-9+ubuntu18.04.1+deb.sury.org+1 (cli) ..."
}

Bonus: Reuse via Roles

Want to reuse this across projects? Move it into a role (e.g., roles/php73/) and include it like this:

roles:
  - php73

Note

PHP 7.3 is EOL. Only use this if:

• You’re dealing with legacy apps.
• You’re explicitly required to stay on this version.

Otherwise, consider installing a more recent version like PHP 8.1 or 8.2.

🏁 That’s It

You now have a fully automated PHP 7.3 setup using Ansible. This keeps your infrastructure consistent, easy to update, and less prone to manual errors.

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Comments

[Alvaro Montoro]

Are you republishing this article from somewhere else? PHP 7.3 reached its end-of-life almost 4 years ago. It should not be used.