MH Consulting

I never uses these enough to remember them so I though I would write them down for easy access and hopes that someone else might find it useful.

Linux is a UNIX like system created by Linus Torvalds in 1991, is one of the first true open source operating systems. An operating system is software that controls access to hardware, software and other resources on a computer. Much like Windows or Apple’s OS it has an interface that is user friendly and provides users an easy way of accessing programs and files stored on a computer. Linux is an extremely secure operating system and as of this writing is not as susceptible to viruses as windows. The main reason for this is because of two main reasons. The first and foremost reason is the security built into Linux makes it very hard for viruses to be able to attack and install themselves. The second main reason is that when Bill Gates created Microsoft the majority of the programming community believed software code should be shared. Bill Gates wanted to be paid for his hard work and according some didn’t mind using ideas from code that was in the shared community. However you look at it most programmers back then disliked Gates because he wanted to make a living off writing software. Linux was created as the Anti-Windows and is used widely among the programming community and open source community.

The great thing about Linux is that it can be downloaded and installed on as many computers as you want and it doesn’t cost any anything. It is free to use and distribute. The idea behind Open Source is that you make you code available to the general public free of charge so they can modify it to suit their needs. Because everything must be driven by money the open source community believes that the profits should come in the form of service. You may use my code free of charge but I offer my services to help you install, trouble shoot, etc at a charge. Often most non open source communities sell the ability to use their software but offer technical support for free as long as you are paid or paid for the software.

There are many flavors of Linux to use Red Hat, SuSE, Mandrake, Ubuntu, and others. Red Hat and SuSE are known for their distributions in the commercial environment, both server and desktop platforms can be purchased giving security updates, technical support, etc. Ubuntu is quickly gaining its share in the computer world due to its ease of use and free nature. At this point it may even have a larger share then any other Linux type. Ubuntu offers server, desktop, and cloud version free of charge. Ubuntu now has a major commercial backer, Canonical who is supporting Ubuntu in many countries. I would guess that Red Hat and Ubuntu currently make up the majority of Linux based computers. A full list of Linux distributions can be found here.

If you want to try out Linux but don’t want to install anything on your computer most distributions have a Live CD you can download free of charge. Just burn the downloaded image onto a CD or DVD and put it in your computer before it boots up. It will run Linux from the CD and you can try it out without ever having to install Linux.

From my usage I have found Ubuntu to be the easiest and fastest. Linux is a lightweight operating system to start with and Ubuntu capitalizes on that. My Ubuntu server will boot up and be running in just a few seconds. My Ubuntu desktop/Laptops boot a little slower but still faster then most Operating Systems like Windows or the Mac OS.

All Linux distributions have a plethora of free software you can install. From office productivity software like Open Office to Image Multiplication programs like GIMP and Darktable. If there is a type of software you want you can be sure you will find it for your Linux installation.

The downside to Linux is that it doesn’t have a lot of commercial developers creating software for it. For example Adobe Photoshop or Microsoft Office don’t run natively in Linux installations because their companies don’t create installation packages for Linux. Instead to run those types of commercial programs you will need to run them through a program called WINE which acts as a compatibility layer between Linux and the software. It doesn’t always work 100% and may take a little tweaking to get it functioning correctly.  You can always find a free version that may be just as good or almost as good as the commercial programs but sometimes you want to use the software you are use to. So because you can’t run these natively this is a downside.

The other downside is that you will need to learn a new operating system. Lucky it will feel similar to Microsoft Windows or the Mac Os so there is just a small learning curve.

I have done several Moodle installs on RedHat, CentOS, and Ubuntu Server. By far I like Ubuntu the most. Ubuntu Server is simple to setup and use, plus it is a much lighter weight server then the others and boots much faster. I also usually have fewer issues with setting up Moodle on Ubuntu. Don’t get me wrong RedHat and CentOS (which are the same thing) are great operating systems and are not difficult either, it is just hard to beat Ubuntu.

This tutorial may seem long and difficult but don’t get discouraged. It is a lot more simple then is seems.  I have included all the Ubuntu Server commands you should need.  At the end of this post I have included some Linux commands that I have found useful when using Ubuntu Server. A note about Ubuntu, often you need to run a command as root or administrator. This is knows as the super user and is accomplished by prefixing the command with sudo. Example: sudo apt-get install package

Here are the overall steps you need. Look below for the details on each step.

1. Setup a  LAMP server (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP server)
2. Setup a database in MySQL
3. Upload the Moodle package and install it

Setup a LAMP Server – Vanilla install of Ubuntu with Apache, MySQL, PHP

Start with the Ubuntu Install on a virtual machine

• Start Installing Ubuntu Server and follow the prompts
• Write down username and password and login
• Install VMware Tools
  sudo apt-get install open-vm-tools
• Install Apache, MySQL and PHP
  sudo apt-get install tasksel
  sudo tasksel install lamp-server
  Write down the username and password you choose for MySQL
• Install SSH for remote administration
  sudo apt-get install openssh-server
• Install and setup vsftpd (https://help.ubuntu.com/10.04/serverguide/ftp-server.html)
  sudo apt-get install vsftpd
  sudo nano /etc/vsftpd.conf
  • local_enable=YES
  • write_enable=YES

sudo /etc/init.d/vsftpd restart

• Install text/image tools:
  • sudo apt-get install latex (use texlive instead)
  • sudo apt-get install ghostscript
  • sudo apt-get install convert
  • sudo apt-get install dvips
  • o    sudo apt-get install texlive-full
  • sudo apt-get install imagemagick
  • sudo apt-get install mimetex
  • Install various PHP extentions:
    • sudo apt-get install php5-ldap
    • sudo apt-get install php5-curl
    • sudo apt-get install php5-ldap
    • sudo apt-get install php5-gd
    • sudo apt-get install php5-intl
    • sudo apt-get install php5-xmlrpc
    • sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
    • Optional Install Clam Antivirus: sudo apt-get install clamav
    • Optional Install Spell Checker: sudo apt-get install unzip zip aspell-en aspell-fr aspell-de aspell-es

Setup a Database in MySQL

You now need a database for moodle to save data to. You installed the MySQL service in the pervious steps but you might not have creaed a database for the data to be saved in yet. If this MySQL installations is only holding Moodle data then you can just use the same username and password for the moodle database as the MySQL administrator otherwise it is a good security idea to create seporate users for each database MySQL will be hosting. Please that once you login to MySQL all  statements will need to end with a ;

Login to MySQL (skip the second setp if only one database administor will be used)

• Optional change the password (only needed if you didn’t set a good password during install)
  • mysqladmin -u root password yourownpassword
  • mysqladmin -u root -h localhost password yourownpassword
  • Optional create a separate user and create the permissions for that users for the moodle database using the using the set permissions script Type:  mysql_setpermission and follow the prompts to create a new users and assign them permissions on the moodle database.
  • Login to MySQL as the administrator:
  • mysql -u root –p
    type in the password
  • Create a database for Moodle to use: CREATE DATABASE moodle Default Character Set;
  • Logout of MySQL: exit;

Upload The Moodle Package and Install It

Moodle needs to folders:  “moodledata” and “moodle”
The “moodle” holds the actual moodle files that actually run moodle. This folder will need to be in a place accessible by the internet.
The “moodledata’ holds user files and temp files and needs read, write, execute permissions. This folder should not be accessible by the internet directly.
The “moodle” needs read and execute to run Moodle but during the install it will need write access as well because it creates a config.php file. You can create and set permissions in two ways, either via the command line in Ubuntu or via an FTP client program.

• Option 1 – Use FTP to create and set permissions of the Moodle folders
  • FTP to the server and navigate to the web directory usually: /var
  • create the directory: /var/moodledata  and  /var/www/moodle
  • use your FTP client to change the permissions for the two folders to 777
  • Option 2 – Use Ubuntu command line to create and set permissions of the Moodle folders
    • mkdir -p /var/www/moodle
    • chmod -R 777 /var/www/moodle
    • mkdir -p /var/moodledata
    • chmod -R 777 /var/moodledata

Now you need to upload the moodle files and install Moodle.

• Download the Moodle package from moodle.org and unzip/extract the package
• Use your FTP client to upload the moodle package to your newly created moodle directory.
• You should have already set up the domain name or IP address you will be using to access Moodle and it should point to your Ubuntu server. This will be the IP address or domain name everyone will be using to access Moodle.
  • http://192.168.1.10/moodle or  http://mydomain.com/moodle
  • It will ask you for the language of your choice. Choose EN for English
  • Now it will ask you for the installation settings of your server.
    • Data folder will be: /var/moodledata
    • Database Type: MySQL
    • Database will be: moodle
    • Database User: use the username you used for your MySQL database
    • Database Password: password you used for your MySQL database
    • Table Prefix can be anything as long as no other program will be using it in your database. If your database is only used for Moodle you can call it anything. I use mdl_
• If the moodle directory has write access the installation will write the config.php file there using the settings you just chose. If not you will need to create the file by copying the code Moodle provides during the install and uploading it in a file called config.php to your moodle directory.
• You should be good to go at this point. Just follow the prompts and set the settings what work for your environment. If you are unsure the default settings usually are a good start.

Other Useful Linux Ubuntu commands:

• Reboot Server: sudo shutdown -r now
• Shutdown Server: sudo shutdown -h now
• To install a package: sudo apt-get install PackageName
• To uninstall a package: sudo apt-get remove PackageName
• To update package indes: sudo apt-get update
• To update installed packages: sudo apt-get upgrade
• To update Ubuntu to the latest distro: sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
• To delete a directory and all subfolders and files: rm -rf DirectoryName
• Make a copy of moodledata directory for a backup before updateing
  • mkdir moodledata_backup
  • cp -r /var/www/moodledata/* /var/www/moodledata_backup
• Restart Apache: /etc/init.d/httpd restart
•  Start vsftpd: /sbin/service vsftpd start
•  Stop vsftpd: /sbin/service vsftpd stop
• Restart vsftpd: /sbin/service vsftpd restart
• MySQL Backup: mysqldump -u root -p -C -Q -e -a moodle > moodle-backup.sql
• MySQL Restore: mysql -u root -p moodle < moodle-backup.sql