How to enable cURL extension in PHP?

 *Latest updates on 18th Oct 2016

Note: This guide is for those who have FULL access to the server when system configuration can be changed. If you are using shared hosting, please contact your hosting provider.

Step 1: Check whether cURL extension is installed/enabled or not

Within the Joomla administration area, you can view “php.ini” configurations by navigating to Site > System Information and selecting the tab “PHP Information”.

At this point, search for the keyword “curl” and if it does not appear on the page, the extension might not be installed/enabled. Please proceed to the next step.

P.S: In this step, you are also able to locate where the “php.ini” configuration file is. Search for “Loaded Configuration File” and you might end up with something like:

Step 2: Ensure cURL extension for PHP is installed

On Windows, people often use WAMP (Windows, Apache, MySQL, PHP) bundles for local development. Fortunately, the cURL extension is pre-installed with those bundles, so you can proceed to Step 3.

On Linux, it depends on which Linux distro the server is installed with, so you might need to run the appropriate command.

For example, with Ubuntu/Debian server, you need to run this command:

sudo apt-get install php5-curl

After that, restart the Apache server:

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

After the Apache server has restarted, the extension should be enabled by default. You might use the method at Step 1 to check, and if not, please proceed to the next step.

Step 3: Enable cURL extension in “php.ini” file

Load the “php.ini” file located in Step 1 into your favourite text editor (if you are using Windows, we suggest Notepad++), then search for “php_curl”. At this point, you need to uncomment the line by removing the semicolon at the beginning of the line, as below.

After saving the file, restart the Apache server. Double-check the Joomla “PHP Information” section again to see if the extension is enabled.

If you see something like that, then congratulations, you have successfully enabled PHP cURL!

NOTE:

Enabling cURL for your Joomla website is very important. Because all Joomla extensions from JoomlaShine require enabling cURL to operate functionally.

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