This post explain how to upgrade to PHP 7.3 in a Virtual Machine (VM) on the Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
The php version can be checked using
php -v
1.- go to the console on the GCP. Open a terminal using SSH
2.-In the terminal
sudo apt-get install ca-certificates apt-transport-https
wget -q https://packages.sury.org/php/apt.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -
echo "deb https://packages.sury.org/php/ stretch main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/php.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install php7.3
3.- After executing the download and installation, disable the old one and enable the new PHP
sudo a2dismod php7.0
sudo a2enmod php7.3
If there is a mysql error like
Your PHP installation appears to be missing the MySQL extension which is required by WordPress
It can be fixed reinstalling the PHP plugin, accorded to the version
sudo apt-get install php7.3-mysql
4.- Restart the server
sudo systemctl restart apache2
5.- check the version using this plugin: