How to install PHP mbstring on CentOS 6.2

Question

How do I install mbstring with PHP on CentOS 6.2

I've tried:

$ sudo yum install php-mbstring

Loaded plugins: fastestmirror, security
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
 * base: mirror.net.cen.ct.gov
 * extras: centos.aol.com
 * updates: mirrors.seas.harvard.edu
Setting up Install Process
No package php-mbstring available.
Error: Nothing to do

But no packages were found?

Answer 1

do the following:

sudo nano /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Base.repo

under the section updates, comment out the mirrorlist line (put a # in front of the line), then on a new line write:

baseurl=http://centos.intergenia.de/$releasever/updates/$basearch/

now try:

yum install php-mbstring

(afterwards you'll probably want to uncomment the mirrorlist and comment out the baseurl)

Answer 2

If you have cPanel hosting you can use Easy Apache to do this through shell. These are the steps.

1. Type the Easy Apache PathType the path for Easy Apache
   

   root@vps#### [~]# /scripts/easyapache

2. Do not say yes to the "cPanel update available".
3. Continue through the screens with defaults till you get to the "Exhaustive options list".
4. Page down till you see the Mbstring extension listed and select it.
5. Continue through the Steps and Save the Apache PHP build.

Apache and PHP will now rebuild to include the mbstring extension. Wait for the process to finish ~10 to 30 minutes. Once the process is finished you should see the Mbstring extension in the phpinfo now.

For more detailed steps see the article Installing the mbstring extension with Easy Apache