Problem: When you start a new Amazon Linux 2 AMI server, and try to install php via command:

    yum install php

After install successfully and check the version, you would see php -v

PHP 5.4.16 (cli) (built: Oct 31 2019 18:34:05)

However, the latest php version is 7.2 and you want to have a new version.

Solution: You can enable it via amazon linux extras with this command:

    sudo amazon-linux-extras enable php7.2

Once it is enabled, follow the instructions to install:

    yum clean metadata
    yum install php-cli php-pdo php-fpm php-json php-mysqlnd

That’s it. Check the php -v again and it shows:

PHP 7.2.28 (cli) (built: Mar 2 2020 19:38:11) ( NTS )