Installing Moodle 4.4 on Ubuntu Server

2. Install Moodle Files

  cd /var/www/html
        

This is a directory that is accesible to the outside world (i.e., to visitors to your LMS site). This is where we will download the Moodle files to. We will create this directory in a conventional place: at /var/www/html

You can download the most recent stable release from git.moodle.org

You can alternatively just download the normal Moodle files, but using Git is advantagous because it makes it easy to upgrade to the next major release. Moodle has dedicated documentation for details of this installation method.

We will download Moodle using Git

...and we can "clone" the Moodle git repository from "moodle.git":

  sudo git clone git://git.moodle.org/moodle.git 
            

It may take a few minutes to download the full git repository.

If we change to the "moodle" directory that should now be available...

  cd moodle
          

We can see that there is a branch for each available Moodle version:

  git branch -a  
          

(You can exit out of the display with 'q')

If you see this error:

  fatal: detected dubious ownership in repository at '/var/www/html/moodle'
          

...you can add an exception for this directory:

  git config --global --add safe.directory /var/www/html/moodle
          

Let's track the 4.4 stable release:

  sudo git branch --track MOODLE_404_STABLE origin/MOODLE_404_STABLE
          

...and check it out:

  sudo git checkout MOODLE_404_STABLE
          

We can change the owner of the moodle directory to a user with root access privilages (i.e., "sudo" privaleges) and the group of the directory to the web server group (i.e., www-data)

  sudo chown -R [username]:www-data /var/www/html/moodle
          

However, make sure that the web files are not writable by the web server user group! For example, the default permission set, "755", will allow only the owner of the directoy to have write access. You can see the current permission with:

  ls -l
          

("(d)rwxr-xr-x" is the same as 755)

  sudo chmod 755 /var/www/html/moodle
          

More info about permissions and ownership:

• Moodle Docs: Security Recommendations
• Moodle Docs forum discussion
• Moodle Docs forum discussion

3. Installing PHP

The basic server software used for hosting most web services is refered to as the "LAMP" bundle:

• Linux: The operating system (i.e., Ubuntu)
• Apache: Web server software
• MySQL: Database server
• PHP: General-purpuse scripting langauge used for web development

Most LMS installations will require these elements as required software.

Moodle is written in the PHP language, so you'll need to download the PHP interpreter. We need to install the appropriate version of PHP. For example, Moodle 4.4 requires you to have PHP 8.1 installed on your server. We also need to install the respective PHP extensions, as well.

If you're installing an older version of Moodle, you may need to use an older version of PHP, as well. For example, I got an "error/generalexceptionmessage" when going to my new moodle URL. This was caused by my PHP version being too recent (for example, see this post on the Moodle forum). You may need to downgrade your version of PHP. You can check PHP compatability here.

(https://moodledev.io/general/development/policies/php)

You can download Ubuntu's current version of PHP, the PHP Apache module, and the PHP command line interface (CLI) with:

  sudo apt install php libapache2-mod-php php-cli
          

(as per the instructions on the official Ubuntu website.)

Here's where you can find what version of PHP you need for your version of Moodle.

If you want the most recent version of PHP for Ubuntu, it may not be currently available in the general "apt" package repository (due to a "feature freeze" ), so you will need to download it from a 3rd party repository:

  sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php
          

Although this is a 3rd-party repository, Ondrej is a widely-trusted developer for Ubuntu PHP packages. He has been writing and maintaining PHP packages for Ubuntu for many years. Therefore, press return/enter when you are prompted to continue at a warning prompt.

Now let's install the PHP 8.2 Apache plugin and PHP 8.2 for the command line interface:

  sudo apt install php8.2 php8.2-cli
          

You can learn more about the difference between these PHP versions here or here. Note that your command line PHP version is not the same thing as the PHP version of your Apache module.

Next, you'll need to make sure that all of the required PHP extensions are installed on your server. You can see which are already installed with:

  php -m
        

The "-m" flag is for "modules," which are the same thing as extensions.

Here's how you can install the extensions that are not included automatically with PHP:

  sudo apt install php-curl php-xml php-gd php-intl php-mbstring php-mysqli php-soap php-xmlrpc php-zip
        

If you need them for a specific version of PHP, you can include the version number like this:

  sudo apt install php8.2-{curl,curl,gd,xml,mbstring,mysqli,intl,soap,xml,xmlrpc,zip}
        

Some notes regarding the individual extensions:

• The "dom" extension is included in "xml" extension.

• We are installing the MySQLi extension because that it corresponds to the MySQL database type that we will be using. In PHP, MySQLi functions allow you to access MySQL database servers. Beware of older documentation that right recommend installing the (now depricated) php5-mysql extension.

• The curl extension allows you to execute curl commands in Moodle. For example, here.

• The mbstring extension allows PHP to parse multibyte strings.

Restart the apache server after installation:

  sudo service apache2 restart
        

4. Setting Up MySQL Database and "moodledata" directory

Next, we'll need to download the php database server. This is where Moodle will store user info:

  sudo apt install mysql-server
      

Once it's installed, you can check its status:

  sudo service mysql status
      

Log in to MySQL using root privalages:

  sudo mysql
      

Create a database user and a corresponding password:

  mysql> CREATE USER 'lmstutorials'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'test';
      

Now, grant that user all privalages:

  mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'lmstutorials'@'localhost';
      

  mysql -u [username] -p
          

  mysql> CREATE DATABASE moodle DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;
      

You can type quit to leave the mysql command line.

MySQL is active

Next, we need to create a directory where Moodle can store files. This is the "moodledata" directory. We can create this in our "var" directory like this:

  sudo mkdir /var/moodledata
            

You can call this directory whatever you like and place it anywhere (except in your webroot directory -- don't do this, for security reasons), but calling it moodledata is a convention.

Change the owner of the directory to www-data. This is the name of the web server user in Ubuntu. In other words, this allows the Apache web server to write to this directory (for security reasons, we wouldn't want the web server to write to every directory by default).

  sudo chown www-data:www-data /var/moodledata
            

Grant read, write, and execute permissions to the www-data group (this is why we don't want to have this folder in the webroot):

  sudo chmod 0770 /var/moodledata
            

If the permissions are not set correctly, you may get a "PHP permissions" error .

5. Installing and Configuring Moodle

Before you install Moodle, make sure to change "max_input_vars" to a value of at least 5000 in both /etc/php/8.2/apache2/php.ini and /etc/php/8.2/cli/php.ini (don't forget to remove the semicolon comment before the current default). (you can use control + w to search for it; it's a long file!) Change "8.2" to the PHP version you are using

Change "max_input_vars" value

When you download the Moodle files, there is no config.php file. This is the main configuration file that holds important information like the username and password that Moodle will use to access the database, as well as the locations of the webroot and data directory. There are a few ways to create the config.php file in the Moodle folder:

• First, you can copy the "config-dist.php" file and name it "config.php". Then you can manually enter the required info.

• Second, you can follow a similar guided install on your web browser by navigating to your Moodle webroot. There, you will find the step-by-step configuration workflow.

• Finally, you can run the install.php script and follow the directions:

    cd /var/www/html/moodle/admin/cli
    sudo php ./install.php
                




In this tutorial, we have chosen the last option.

Moodle Guided Install Screen

For the webroot, specify your fully-qualified domain name. In this example, I am only installing locally so I will add:

http://192.168.64.6/moodle

But you would probably want to add something like:

http://mymoodleinstance.com

https://mymoodleinstance.com

For the "dataroot," add the path to the moodledata folder you created:

/var/moodledata

As you are using a MySQL database, choose the "mysqli" option for the database in the config file.

If the settings are set correctly, the install process will procede automatically (if you chose the second or third installation option).

If you need to restart this install process, you may need to delete the config.php file in the main moodle directory and start again with the install.php script.

After the installation is complete, you should be able to access your new Moodle instance at your webroot address

You'll want to change the DocumentRoot in Apache to the moodle directory:

in /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf to "DocumentRoot /var/www/html/moodle"

Moodle Guided Install Screen

6. Setting Up the Cron Script

We're not out of the woods quite yet! We still need to set the Moodle cron.php script to run periodically.

To set up Moodle cron jobs, first you'll need to make sure that the cron utility is installed on your server:

  sudo apt install cron
            

  crontab -l
            

(the -l is for "list")

To add a cron job to the www-data user's crontab:

  sudo crontab -u www-data -e
            

Here's a discussion regarding why you should edit the crontab directly.

If you are prompted to choose an editor, we suggest that you select the "nano" option. It is the most straight-foward editor option for linux beginners.

At the end of the file, you can add:

  * * * * * /usr/bin/php  /var/www/html/moodle/admin/cli/cron.php
            

You will be using the php binary found in the /usr/bin/php directory to run the cron.php script found in the cli subdirectory. Notice that you are running this script with the "Command Line Interface" PHP binary, not the PHP Apache module. Therefore, make sure that it is up to data, as well.

The "* * * * *" specifies that the cron.php script should be run every minute.

The www-data crontab

If you wanted to run the cron.php manaully (just to see if everything outside of the crontab is working correctly), you could do this:

  sudo /usr/bin/php /var/www/html/moodle/admin/cli/cron.php
            

You can see that it is working if you enable the option to check the cron via web browser in the site security settings:

Enable viewing the cron in a web browser

...and then visit the moodle/admin/cron.php directory on at your loaclhost URL. For example, for us it is:

http://192.168.64.6/moodle/admin/cron.php

Again you can find your local IP address with:

  ip addr
            

In your browser, you should see:

The cron is working!

Conclusion

Congratulations -- You've installed Moodle on your Ubuntu server! You should now be able to log in to your Moodle instance as the admin user that you specified in the creation of the config.php file.

If you make a mistake or are stuck and want to start over:

• Log into MySQL and wipe the moodle mysql database:

    drop database moodle
              

• Delete the moodle files:

    sudo rm -r /var/www/html/moodle
              

• Delete the moodledata folder:

    sudo rm -r /var/moodledata
              

A logical next step for most people will be to set up email for your Moodle instance. For example, you may want to email students notifications (e.g., for new posts in subscribed forums) or account recovery links for lost usernames or passwords.