Installing Moodle

This guide explains how to install Moodle for the first time.

Sections in this document:

  1. Requirements
  2. Download
  3. Site structure
  4. Create a data directory
  5. Create a database
  6. Check web server settings
  7. Edit config.php
  8. Go to the admin page
  9. Set up cron
  10. Create a new course

1. Requirements

Moodle is primarily developed in Linux using PHP, Apache and MySQL, and regularly tested under Windows XP and Mac OS X environments.

All you should need are:

On a Windows platform, the quickest way to satisfy these requirements is to download PHPTriad, FoxServ, or EasyPHP which will install Apache, PHP, and MySQL for you. Make sure you enable the GD module so Moodle can process images - you may have to edit php.ini and remove the comment (;) from this line: 'extension=php_gd.dll'.

On Mac OS X I highly recommend the fink project.

 

2. Download

There are two ways to get Moodle, as a compressed package and via CVS. These are explained in detail on the download page on http://moodle.com/

After downloading and unpacking the archive, or checking out the files via CVS, you will be left with a directory called "moodle", containing a number of files and folders.

You can either place the whole folder in your web server documents directory, in which case the site will be located at http://yourwebserver.com/moodle, or you can copy all the contents straight into the main web server documents directory, in which case the site will be simply http://yourwebserver.com.

 

3. Site structure

Here is a quick summary of the contents of the Moodle folder, to help get you oriented:

config.php - the only file you need to edit to get started
version.php - defines the current version of Moodle code
index.php - the front page of the site

 

4. Create a data directory

Moodle will also need some space on your hard disk to store uploaded files, such as course documents and user pictures.

Create a directory for this purpose somewhere away from the web server documents directory (we don't want these files to be directly accessible from the web), and ensure that the web server software has permission to write to this directory. On Unix machines, this means setting the owner of the directory to be something like "nobody" or "apache".

 

5. Create a database

You need to create an empty database (eg "moodle") in your database system along with a special user (eg "moodleuser") that has access to that database (and that database only. For example, don't use the "root" user for the moodle database in a production system - it's a security hazard).

eg for MySQL: 

   # mysql -u root -p
   > CREATE DATABASE moodle; 
   > GRANT SELECT,INSERT,UPDATE,DELETE,CREATE,DROP,INDEX,ALTER ON moodle.* 
           TO moodleuser@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'yourpassword'; 
   > quit 
   # mysqladmin -p reload

(For MySQL I highly recommend the use of phpMyAdmin to manage your databases).

 

6. Check your web server settings

Firstly, make sure that your web server is set up to use index.php as a default page (perhaps in addition to index.html, default.htm and so on).

In Apache, this is done using a DirectoryIndex parameter in your httpd.conf file. Mine usually looks like this:

DirectoryIndex index.php index.html index.htm

Just make sure index.php is in the list (and preferably towards the start of the list, for efficiency).

Secondly, check your PHP configuration file (usually called php.ini) and make sure uploading has been turned on:

file_uploads = On

Most distributions of PHP have this turned on by default, but you may want to check it anyway.

 

7. Edit config.php

Now you can edit the configuration file, config.php. This file is used by all other files in Moodle.

To start with, make a copy of config-dist.php and call it config.php. We do this so that your config.php won't be overwritten in case you upgrade Moodle later on.

Edit config.php to specify the database details that you just defined, as well as the site address, file system directory, data directory and so on. The config file has detailed directions.

For the rest of this installation document we will assume your site is at: http://example.com/moodle

 

8. Go to the admin page

The admin page should now be working at: http://example.com/moodle/admin. If you try and access the front page of your site you'll be taken there automatically anyway. The first time you access this admin page, you will be presented with a GPL agreement which you need to agree with to continue with the setup.

(Moodle will also try to set some cookies in your browser. If you have your browser set up to let you choose to accept cookies, then you must accept the Moodle cookies, or Moodle won't work properly.)

Now Moodle will start setting set up your database. Firstly, the main database tables are created. You should see a number of SQL statements followed by status messages (in green or red) that look like this:

CREATE TABLE course ( id int(10) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment, category int(10) unsigned NOT NULL default '0', password varchar(50) NOT NULL default '', fullname varchar(254) NOT NULL default '', shortname varchar(15) NOT NULL default '', summary text NOT NULL, format tinyint(4) NOT NULL default '1', teacher varchar(100) NOT NULL default 'Teacher', startdate int(10) unsigned NOT NULL default '0', enddate int(10) unsigned NOT NULL default '0', timemodified int(10) unsigned NOT NULL default '0', PRIMARY KEY (id)) TYPE=MyISAM

SUCCESS

...and so on, followed by: Main databases set up successfully.

If you don't see these, then there must have been some problem with the database or the configuration settings you defined in config.php. Check that PHP isn't in a restricted "safe mode" (commercial web hosts often have safe mode turned on). You can check PHP variables by creating a little file containing <? phpinfo ?> and looking at it through a browser. Check all these and try this page again.

Scroll down the very bottom of the page and press the "Continue" link.

Next you will see a similar page that sets up all the tables required by each Moodle module. As before, they should all be green, otherwise you may be a problem in the module code.

Scroll down the very bottom of the page and press the "Continue" link.

You should now see a form where you can define more parameters for your Moodle site, such as the name, the description shown on the front page, and so on. Fill this out (you can always go back and change these later) and then press "Save changes".

Finally, you will then be asked to create a top-level administration user for future access to the admin pages. Fill out the details with your own name, email etc and then click "Save changes". Not all the fields are required, but if you miss any important fields you'll be re-prompted for them.

Make sure you remember the username and password you chose for the administration user account, as they will be necessary to access the administration page in future.

Once successful, you will be returned to the main admin page, which contain a number of links arranged in a menu (these items also appear on the home page when you are logged in as the admin user). All your further administration of Moodle can now be done using this menu, such as:

 

9. Set up cron

Some of Moodle's modules require continual checks to perform tasks. For example, Moodle needs to check the discussion forums so it can mail out copies of posts to people who have subscribed.

The script that does all this is located in the admin directory, and is called cron.php. However, it can not run itself, so you need to set up a mechanism where this script is run regularly (eg every five minutes). This provides a "heartbeat" so that the script can perform functions at periods defined by each module.

Test that the script works by running it directly from your browser:

http://example.com/moodle/admin/cron.php

Now, you need to set up some of way of running the script automatically and regularly.

Running the script from a command line

You can call the page from the command line just as you did in the example above. For example, you can use a Unix utility like 'wget':

wget -q -O /dev/null http://example.com/moodle/admin/cron.php

Note in this example that the output is thrown away (to /dev/null).

The same thing using lynx:

lynx -dump http://example.com/moodle/admin/cron.php > /dev/null

Alternatively you could use a standalone version of PHP, compiled to be run on the command line. The advantage with doing this is that your web server logs aren't filled with constant requests to cron.php. The disadvantage is that you need to have access to a command-line version of php.

/opt/bin/php /web/moodle/admin/cron.php


(Windows) C:\apache\php\php.exe C:\apache\htdocs\moodle\admin\cron.php

Automatically running the script every 5 minutes

On Unix systems: Use cron. Edit your cron settings from the commandline using "crontab -e" and add a line like:

*/5 * * * * wget -q -O /dev/null http://example.com/moodle/admin/cron.php

On Windows systems: The simplest way is to use my package moodle-cron-for-windows.zip which makes this whole thing very easy.

Other platforms: you will need to find another way to do this (please let me know so I can update this documentation).

10. Create a new course

Now that Moodle is running properly, you can create a course.

Select "Create a new course" from the Admin page (or the admin links on the home page).

Fill out the form, paying special attention to the course format. You don't have to worry about the details too much at this stage, as everything can be changed later by the teacher.

Press "Save changes", and you will be taken to a new form where you can assign teachers to the course. You can only add existing user accounts from this form - if you want to create a new teacher account then either ask the teacher to create one for themselves (see the login page), or create one for them using the "Add a new user" on the Admin page.

Once done, the course is ready to customise, and is accessible via the "Courses" link on the home page.

See the "Teacher Manual" for more details on course-building.

 

Moodle Documentation

Version: $Id: install.html,v 1.10 2002/08/16 08:33:54 martin Exp $