How to Upgrade PHP 5.3 to PHP 5.6 on CentOS 6

Follow this post to install PHP 7 to your CentOS 6

Nowadays, to keep up up-to-date with the latest PHP technology, you need at least PHP version 5.6 installed on your server.
But for CentOS 6 users, PHP 5.3.3 is the latest version of PHP available through the official CentOS package repository.

To update your PHP version to version 5.6, follow these steps:

1. Install repository
   rpm -Uvh http://mirror.webtatic.com/yum/el6/latest.rpm

2. Remove older PHP version
   yum remove php-common
3. Install PHP 5.6
   yum install php56w php56w-mysql php56w-common php56w-pdo php56w-opcache

4. Restart Apache
   service httpd restart
5. Check PHP version
   php --version
   You will get something like:

   PHP 5.6.32 (cli) (built: Oct 29 2017 19:00:01)
   Copyright (c) 1997-2016 The PHP Group
   Zend Engine v2.6.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2016 Zend Technologies
   

Congratulation, your PHP is now upgraded to version 5.6!