Moodle is an open-source learning management system that enables anyone to share coursework, administer assessments and track students’ learning. For installation of Moodle, you need a web server and database management. For the deployment of Moodle on a windows server, you need to have the Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio that you can install from the Microsoft website. However, if you are installing it on a Linux based server, Visual C++ is not required.
Here are other requirements to make the installation possible.
Hardware Requirements
- 200MB space for Moodle code and minimum 5GB space for storing content
- Minimum 1GHz is required for a processor. However, 2GHz dual-core processor is recommended.
- The recommended space for memory is at least 1 GB.
Server Requirements
- You need minimum PHP 7.0.0 to install Moodle 3.0. However, if you want to install a higher version of the software, you need PHP 7.1.x and 7.2.x.
- If you are using database management like MySQL, ensure that your database supports full UTF-8 for installation of the latest version of Moodle.
- Minimum supported versions of database like MySQL, Oracle, MariaDB, PostgreSQL and Microsoft SQL are 5.5.31, 10.2, 5.5.31, 9.3 and 2008 for the installation of Moodle.
Moodle Installation
Download the required version from the original site of Moodle. The downloading will result in a directory containing files and folders that you can either directly put in your web server or copy the content in your web server.
The next step is to create a directory because Moodle requires directory to store all its files such as cache, temporary data, uploaded files and other form of data. The web server should be capable to write to the directory, and for this purpose, you need to allow a web server user to access these files:
- # mkdir /path/to/moodledata
- # chmod 0777 /path/to/moodledata
Set the following permission if your server is using Access Controlling List (ACL):
# chmod -R +a “www-data allow read,delete,write,append,file_inherit,directory_inherit” /path/to/moodledata
However, this directory should not be accessible directly by the web thus don’t place it inside your Moodle programme files directory as Moodle will not successfully install. If you have no option other than placing Moodledata in a web directory, you can secure it by creating a “.htaccess” file in the Moodledata directory, but it doesn’t work on all systems.
The next step is to run a web based installer. You are recommended to configure your web server so that the page is not publicly accessible unless it is complete. The installation process will ask you details like administrator account details, site details and copyright confirmation. Once the installation is complete, you will find the Moodle front page asking you to create a new course.