diff --git a/example-projects/tug-of-war-in-the-clouds/aws-boto3-rds-db/start.py b/example-projects/tug-of-war-in-the-clouds/aws-boto3-rds-db/start.py
index 114f7d7..bdc2e83 100644
--- a/example-projects/tug-of-war-in-the-clouds/aws-boto3-rds-db/start.py
+++ b/example-projects/tug-of-war-in-the-clouds/aws-boto3-rds-db/start.py
@@ -159,7 +159,10 @@ userDataWebServer = ('#!/bin/bash\n'
                      '# essential tools\n'
                      'yum install -y joe htop git\n'
                      '# httpd and mysql client\n'
-                     'yum install -y httpd php php-mysql mariadb\n'
+                     'yum install -y httpd mariadb\n'
+                     '# fix php5.x PDO prob PDO::__construct(): Server sent charset (255) unknown to the client.\n'
+                     '# by using Amazons Linux 2 PHP extras\n'
+                     'amazon-linux-extras install -y php7.4\n'
                      '\n'
                      'service httpd start\n'
                      '\n'