How to enable or disable PHP Modules on Ubuntu

All installed PHP modules configuration files are available under /etc/php/PHP_VERSION/mods-available directory. You can see the number of files with extension .ini. You must have installed php specific php modules, you need to enable it before further proceed. The php-common package provides followings commands to manage PHP modules.

phpenmod – Used to enable modules in PHP
phpdismod – Used to disable modules in PHP
phpquery – Used to view status of modules of PHP

There are 3 types of SAPI (Server API) available – CLI, FPM, Apache2 being the most commonly used. You can define SAPI using -s switch to enable/disable module for that only.

Enable PHP Modules

Use phpenmod command followed by module name to enable specific PHP module on your system. In below example, the first command is an example and the second command will enable mbstring module for all installed PHP versions and all SAPI.

### Syntax
phpenmod MODULE_NAME

### Enable mbstring php module
phpenmod mbstring

You can also define the PHP version using -v switch to enable specific modules. Using this you will enable module for all SAPI.

### Syntax
phpenmod -v <PHP VERSION> <MODULE NAME>

### Enable module for specific php version
phpenmod -v 5.6 mbstring
phpenmod -v 7.4 mbstring

Use -s switch to define the SAPI to enable specific modules for specific SAPI for all PHP versions.

### Syntax
phpenmod -s <SAPI> <MODULE NAME>

### Enable module for specific SAPI
phpenmod -s cli mbstring
phpenmod -s fpm mbstring
phpenmod -s apache2 mbstring

You can also define both the PHP version and SAPI for the more specific update.

Disable PHP Modules

You can also disable any un-necessary PHP modules from your system using phpdismod command. For example, disable mbstring module for ALL PHP versions and all SAPI.