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  11 <h1>Installing Moodle</h1>
  12 <blockquote>
  13   <p>This guide explains how to install Moodle for the first time.  It goes into some detail
  14    about some of the steps, in order to cover the wide variety of small differences between
  15    web server setups, so this document may look long and complicated.  Don't be put off by this
  16    - I usually set Moodle up in a few minutes!</p>
  17   <p>Take your time and work through this document carefully - it will save you time later on.</p>
  18   <p>Sections in this document:</p>
  19   <ol>
  20     <li><a href="#requirements">Requirements</a></li>
  21     <li><a href="#downloading">Download</a></li>
  22     <li><a href="#site">Site structure</a></li>
  23     <li><a href="#data">Create a data directory</a></li>
  24     <li><a href="#database">Create a database</a></li>
  25     <li><a href="#webserver">Check web server settings</a></li>
  26     <li><a href="#config">Edit config.php</a></li>
  27     <li><a href="#admin">Go to the admin page</a></li>
  28     <li><a href="#cron">Set up cron</a></li>
  29     <li><a href="#course">Create a new course</a></li>
  30   </ol>
  31   <p>&nbsp;</p>
  32 </blockquote>
  33 <h3 class="sectionheading"><a name="requirements"></a>1. Requirements</h3>
  34 <blockquote>
  35   <p>Moodle is primarily developed in Linux using Apache, MySQL and PHP (also
  36     sometimes known as the LAMP platform), but is also regularly tested with PostgreSQL
  37     and on Windows XP, Mac OS X and Netware 6 operating systems</p>
  38   <p>The requirements for Moodle are as follows:</p>
  39   <ol>
  40     <li>Web server software. Most people use <a href="http://www.apache.org/" target="_blank">Apache</a>,
  41       but Moodle should work fine under any web server that supports PHP, such
  42       as IIS on Windows platforms.</li>
  43     <li><a href="http://www.php.net/" target="_blank">PHP</a> scripting language (version 4.1.0
  44       or later), with the following settings:
  45       <ul>
  46         <li><a href="http://www.boutell.com/gd/" target="_blank">GD library</a>
  47           turned ON, with support for JPG and PNG formats</li>
  48         <li>zlib library turned ON (if you want to use backup/restore on Windows)</li>
  49         <li>Sessions support turned ON</li>
  50         <li>File uploading turned ON</li>
  51         <li>Safe Mode must be turned OFF (see the forums on moodle.org for problems
  52           caused by Safe Mode)</li>
  53       </ul>
  54     </li>
  55     <li>a working database server: <a href="http://www.mysql.com/" target="_blank">MySQL</a>
  56       or <a href="http://www.postgresql.org/" target="_blank">PostgreSQL</a> are
  57       completely supported and recommended for use with Moodle 1.1. All other
  58       databases will be supported fully in the next release.</li>
  59   </ol>
  60   <p>Most web hosts support all of this by default. If you are signed up with
  61     one of the few webhosts that does not support these features ask them why,
  62     and consider taking your business elsewhere.</p>
  63   <p>If you want to run Moodle on your own computer and all this looks a bit daunting,
  64     then please see our guide: <a href="http://moodle.org/doc/?file=installamp.html">Installing
  65     Apache, MySQL and PHP</a>. It provides some step-by-step instructions to install
  66     all this on most popular platforms.</p>
  67   <p>&nbsp;</p>
  68 </blockquote>
  69 <h3 class="sectionheading"><a name="downloading"></a>2. Download</h3>
  70 <blockquote>
  71   <p>There are two ways to get Moodle, as a compressed package and via CVS. These
  72     are explained in detail on the download page: <a href="http://moodle.org/download/" target="_blank">http://moodle.org/download/</a></p>
  73   <p>After downloading and unpacking the archive, or checking out the files via
  74     CVS, you will be left with a directory called &quot;moodle&quot;, containing
  75     a number of files and folders. </p>
  76   <p>You can either place the whole folder in your web server documents directory,
  77     in which case the site will be located at <b>http://yourwebserver.com/moodle</b>,
  78     or you can copy all the contents straight into the main web server documents
  79     directory, in which case the site will be simply <b>http://yourwebserver.com</b>.</p>
  80 </blockquote>
  81 <p>&nbsp;</p>
  82 <h3 class="sectionheading"><a name="site"></a>3. Site structure</h3>
  83 <blockquote>
  84   <p>Here is a quick summary of the contents of the Moodle folder, to help get
  85     you oriented:</p>
  86   <blockquote>
  87     <p>config.php - the ONLY file you need to edit to get started<br />
  88       version.php - defines the current version of Moodle code<br />
  89       index.php - the front page of the site</p>
  90     <ul>
  91       <li>admin/ - code to administrate the whole server </li>
  92       <li>auth/ - plugin modules to authenticate users  </li>
  93       <li>course/ - code to display and manage courses </li>
  94       <li>doc/ - help documentation for Moodle (eg this page)</li>
  95       <li>files/ - code to display and manage uploaded files</li>
  96       <li>lang/ - texts in different languages, one directory per language </li>
  97       <li>lib/ - libraries of core Moodle code </li>
  98       <li>login/ - code to handle login and account creation </li>
  99       <li>mod/ - all Moodle course modules</li>
 100       <li>pix/ - generic site graphics</li>
 101       <li>theme/ - theme packs/skins to change the look of the site.</li>
 102       <li>user/ - code to display and manage users</li>
 103     </ul>
 104     <p>&nbsp;</p>
 105   </blockquote>
 106 </blockquote>
 107 <h3 class="sectionheading"><a name="data"></a>4. Create a data directory</h3>
 108 <blockquote>
 109   <p>Moodle will also need some space on your hard disk to store uploaded files,
 110     such as course documents and user pictures.</p>
 111   <p>Create a directory for this purpose somewhere.  For security, it's best that
 112      this directory is NOT accessible directly via the web.  The easiest way to do this
 113      is to simply locate it OUTSIDE the web directory, otherwise protect it
 114      by creating a file in the data directory called .htaccess, containing this line:
 115   <blockquote>
 116
 117     <pre>deny from all</pre>
 118   </blockquote>
 119   <p>To make sure that Moodle can save uploaded files in this directory, check that
 120      the web server software (eg Apache) has permission to write
 121     to this directory. On Unix machines, this means setting the owner of the directory
 122     to be something like &quot;nobody&quot; or &quot;apache&quot;.</p>
 123   <p>On many shared hosting servers, you will probably need to restrict all file access
 124      to your "group" (to prevent other webhost customers from looking at or changing your files),
 125      but provide full read/write access to everyone else (which will allow the web server
 126      to access your files).  Speak to your server administrator if you are having
 127      trouble setting this up securely.</p>
 128 </blockquote>
 129 <p>&nbsp;</p>
 130 <h3 class="sectionheading"><a name="database"></a>5. Create a database</h3>
 131 <blockquote>
 132   <p>You need to create an empty database (eg "moodle") in your database system
 133     along with a special user (eg "moodleuser") that has access to that database
 134     (and that database only). You could use the "root" user if you wanted to, but
 135     this is not recommended for a production system: if hackers manage to discover
 136     the password then your whole database system would be at risk, rather than
 137     just one database.
 138 </p>
 139   <p>Example command lines for MySQL: </p>
 140   <pre>
 141    # mysql -u root -p
 142    > CREATE DATABASE moodle;
 143    > GRANT SELECT,INSERT,UPDATE,DELETE,CREATE,DROP,INDEX,ALTER ON moodle.*
 144            TO moodleuser@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'yourpassword';
 145    > quit
 146    # mysqladmin -p reload
 147 </pre>
 148   <p>Example command lines for PostgreSQL: </p>
 149   <pre>
 150    # su - postgres
 151    > psql -c "create user moodleuser createdb;" template1
 152    > psql -c "create database moodle;" -U moodleuser template1
 153    > psql -c "alter user moodleuser nocreatedb;" template1
 154 </pre>
 155   <p>(For MySQL I highly recommend the use of <a href="http://phpmyadmin.sourceforge.net/">phpMyAdmin</a>
 156     to manage your databases - you can do all this via a web interface).</p>
 157   <p>As of version 1.0.8, Moodle now supports table prefixes, and so can safely share
 158    a database with tables from other applications.</p>
 159 </blockquote>
 160 <p>&nbsp;</p>
 161 <h3 class="sectionheading"><a name="webserver" id="webserver"></a>6. Check your web server settings</h3>
 162 <blockquote>
 163   <p>Firstly, make sure that your web server is set up to use index.php as a default
 164     page (perhaps in addition to index.html, default.htm and so on).</p>
 165   <p>In Apache, this is done using a DirectoryIndex parameter in your httpd.conf
 166     file. Mine usually looks like this:</p>
 167   <blockquote>
 168     <pre><strong>DirectoryIndex</strong> index.php index.html index.htm </pre>
 169   </blockquote>
 170   <p>Just make sure index.php is in the list (and preferably towards the start
 171     of the list, for efficiency).</p>
 172   <p>Secondly, <b>if you are using Apache 2</b>, then you should turn on the <i>AcceptPathInfo</i>
 173      variable, which allows scripts to be passed arguments like http://server/file.php/arg1/arg2.
 174      This is essential to allow relative links between your resources, and also
 175      provides a performance boost for people using your Moodle web site.  You can
 176      turn this on by adding these lines to your httpd.conf file.</p>
 177   <blockquote>
 178     <pre><strong>AcceptPathInfo</strong> on </pre>
 179   </blockquote>
 180   <p>Thirdly, Moodle requires a number of PHP settings to be active for it to
 181      work.  <b>On most servers these will already be the default settings.</b>
 182      However, some PHP servers (and some of the more recent PHP versions) may
 183      have things set differently.  These are defined in PHP's configuration
 184      file (usually called php.ini):</p>
 185   <blockquote>
 186
 187     <pre>magic_quotes_gpc = 1    (preferred but not necessary)
 188 magic_quotes_runtime = 0    (necessary)
 189 file_uploads = 1
 190 session.auto_start = 0
 191 session.bug_compat_warn = 0
 192 </pre>
 193   </blockquote>
 194   <p>If you don't have access to httpd.conf or php.ini on your server, or you
 195     have Moodle on a server with other applications that require different settings,
 196     then don't worry, you can still OVERRIDE all of the default settings.
 197   <p>To do this, you need to create a file called <b>.htaccess</b> in Moodle's
 198      main directory that contains definitions for these settings.
 199      This only works on Apache servers and only when Overrides have been allowed.
 200
 201   <blockquote>
 202     <pre>
 203 DirectoryIndex index.php index.html index.htm
 204
 205 &lt;IfDefine APACHE2>
 206      <b>AcceptPathInfo</b> on
 207 &lt;/IfDefine>
 208
 209 php_flag magic_quotes_gpc 1
 210 php_flag magic_quotes_runtime 0
 211 php_flag file_uploads 1
 212 php_flag session.auto_start 0
 213 php_flag session.bug_compat_warn 0</pre>
 214   </blockquote>
 215   <p>You can also do things like define the maximum size for uploaded files:
 216
 217   <blockquote>
 218     <pre>
 219 LimitRequestBody 0
 220 php_value upload_max_filesize 2M
 221 php_value post_max_size 2M
 222      </pre>
 223   </blockquote>
 224   <p>The easiest thing to do is just copy the sample file from lib/htaccess
 225      and edit it to suit your needs.  It contains further instructions.  For
 226      example, in a Unix shell:
 227   <blockquote>
 228     <pre>cp lib/htaccess .htaccess</pre>
 229   </blockquote>
 230 </blockquote>
 231 <p>&nbsp;</p>
 232 <h3 class="sectionheading"><a name="config"></a>7. Edit config.php</h3>
 233 <blockquote>
 234   <p>Now you can edit the configuration file, <strong>config.php</strong>, using a
 235      text editor. This file is used by all other files in Moodle.</p>
 236   <p>To start with, make a copy of <strong>config-dist.php</strong> and name it
 237     config.php. We do this so that your config.php won't be overwritten in case
 238     you upgrade Moodle later on. </p>
 239   <p>Edit <strong>config.php</strong> to specify the database details that you
 240     just defined (including a table prefix - notice that this is REQUIRED for
 241     PostgreSQL), as well as the site address, file system directory and data directory.
 242     The config file itself has detailed directions and examples.</p>
 243   <p>Once you have done this the rest of the installation is via a web interface.
 244     For the rest of this installation document we will assume your site is at:
 245     <u>http://example.com/moodle</u></p>
 246 </blockquote>
 247 <p>&nbsp;</p>
 248 <h3 class="sectionheading"><a name="admin"></a>8. Go to the admin page</h3>
 249 <blockquote>
 250   <p>The admin page should now be working at: <u>http://example.com/moodle/admin</u>.
 251     If you try and access the front page of your site you'll be taken there automatically
 252     anyway. The first time you access this admin page, you will be presented with
 253     a GPL &quot;shrinkwrap&quot; agreement with which you must agree before you
 254     can continue with the setup.</p>
 255   <p>(Moodle will also try to set some cookies in your browser. If you have your
 256     browser set up to let you choose to accept cookies, then you <b>must</b> accept
 257     the Moodle cookies, or Moodle won't work properly.)
 258   <p>Now Moodle will start setting up your database and creating tables to store
 259     data. Firstly, the main database tables are created. You should see a number
 260     of SQL statements followed by status messages (in green or red) that look
 261     like this:</p>
 262   <blockquote>
 263     <p>CREATE TABLE course ( id int(10) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment, category
 264       int(10) unsigned NOT NULL default '0', password varchar(50) NOT NULL default
 265       '', fullname varchar(254) NOT NULL default '', shortname varchar(15) NOT
 266       NULL default '', summary text NOT NULL, format tinyint(4) NOT NULL default
 267       '1', teacher varchar(100) NOT NULL default 'Teacher', startdate int(10)
 268       unsigned NOT NULL default '0', enddate int(10) unsigned NOT NULL default
 269       '0', timemodified int(10) unsigned NOT NULL default '0', PRIMARY KEY (id))
 270       TYPE=MyISAM</p>
 271     <p><font color="#006600">SUCCESS</font></p>
 272     <p>...and so on, followed by: <font color="#006600">Main databases set up
 273       successfully.</font> </p>
 274   </blockquote>
 275   <p>If you don't see these, then there must have been some problem with the database
 276     or the configuration settings you defined in config.php. Check that PHP isn't
 277     in a restricted "Safe Mode" (commercial web hosts sometimes have safe mode
 278     turned on). You can check PHP variables by creating a little file containing
 279     &lt? phpinfo() ?&gt and looking at it through a browser. Check all these and
 280     try this page again.</p>
 281   <p>Scroll down the very bottom of the page and press the &quot;Continue&quot;
 282     link.</p>
 283   <p>Next you will see a similar page that sets up all the tables required by
 284     each Moodle module. As before, they should all be <font color="#006600">green</font>.</p>
 285   <p>Scroll down the very bottom of the page and press the &quot;Continue&quot;
 286     link.</p>
 287   <p>You should now see a form where you can define more configuration variables
 288     for your installation, such as the default language, SMTP hosts and so on.
 289     Don't worry too much about getting everything right just now - you can always
 290     come back and edit these later on using the admin interface. Scroll down to
 291     the bottom and click &quot;Save changes&quot;.</p>
 292   <p>If (and only if) you find yourself getting stuck on this page, unable to
 293     continue, then your server probably has what I call the "buggy referrer" problem.
 294     This is easy to fix: just turn off the &quot;secureforms&quot; setting, then
 295     try to continue again.</p>
 296   <p>The next page is a form where you can define parameters for your Moodle site
 297     and the front page, such as the name, format, description and so on. Fill
 298     this out (you can always come back and change these later) and then press
 299     &quot;Save changes&quot;.</p>
 300   <p>Finally, you will then be asked to create a top-level administration user
 301     for future access to the admin pages. Fill out the details with your own name,
 302     email etc and then click &quot;Save changes&quot;. Not all the fields are
 303     required, but if you miss any important fields you'll be re-prompted for them.
 304   </p>
 305   <blockquote>
 306     <blockquote>
 307       <blockquote>
 308         <blockquote>
 309           <blockquote>
 310             <p><strong>Make sure you remember the username and password you chose
 311               for the administration user account, as they will be necessary to
 312               access the administration page in future.</strong></p>
 313           </blockquote>
 314         </blockquote>
 315       </blockquote>
 316     </blockquote>
 317   </blockquote>
 318   <p>(If for any reason your install is interrupted, or there is a system error
 319     of some kind that prevents you from logging in using the admin account, you
 320     can usually log in using the default username of &quot;<strong>admin</strong>&quot;,
 321     with password &quot;<strong>admin</strong>&quot;.)</p>
 322   <p>Once successful, you will be returned to home page of your site. Note the
 323     administration links that appear down the left hand side of the page (these
 324     items also appear on a separate Admin page) - these items are only visible
 325     to you because you are logged in as the admin user. All your further administration
 326     of Moodle can now be done using this menu, such as:</p>
 327   <ul>
 328     <li>creating and deleting courses</li>
 329     <li>creating and editing user accounts</li>
 330     <li>administering teacher accounts</li>
 331     <li>changing site-wide settings like themes etc</li>
 332   </ul>
 333 </blockquote>
 334 <p>&nbsp;</p>
 335 <h3 class="sectionheading"><a name="cron"></a>9. Set up cron</h3>
 336 <blockquote>
 337   <p>Some of Moodle's modules require continual checks to perform tasks. For example,
 338     Moodle needs to check the discussion forums so it can mail out copies of posts
 339     to people who have subscribed.</p>
 340   <p>The script that does all this is located in the admin directory, and is called
 341     cron.php. However, it can not run itself, so you need to set up a mechanism
 342     where this script is run regularly (eg every five or ten minutes). This provides
 343     a &quot;heartbeat&quot; so that the script can perform functions at periods
 344     defined by each module.</p>
 345   <p>Note that the machine performing the cron <b>does not need to be the same
 346     machine that is running Moodle</b>. For example, if you have a limited web
 347     hosting service that does not have cron, then you can might choose to run
 348     cron on another server or on your home computer. All that matters is that
 349     the cron.php file is called regularly. </p>
 350   <p>The load of this script is not very high, so 5 minutes is usually reasonable,
 351     but if you're worried about it you can reduce the time period to something
 352     like 15 minutes or even 30 minutes. It's best not to make the time period
 353     too long, as delaying mail-outs can slow down activity within the course.</p>
 354   <p>First, test that the script works by running it directly from your browser:</p>
 355   <blockquote>
 356     <pre>http://example.com/moodle/admin/cron.php</pre>
 357   </blockquote>
 358   <p>Now, you need to set up some of way of running the script automatically and
 359     regularly. </p>
 360   <h4> Running the script from a command line</h4>
 361   <p>You can call the page from the command line just as you did in the example
 362     above. For example, you can use a Unix utility like 'wget':</p>
 363   <blockquote>
 364     <pre>wget -q -O /dev/null http://example.com/moodle/admin/cron.php</pre>
 365   </blockquote>
 366   <p>Note in this example that the output is thrown away (to /dev/null).</p>
 367   <p>The same thing using lynx:</p>
 368   <blockquote>
 369     <pre>lynx -dump http://example.com/moodle/admin/cron.php &gt; /dev/null</pre>
 370   </blockquote>
 371   <p>Alternatively you could use a standalone version of PHP, compiled to be run
 372     on the command line. The advantage with doing this is that your web server
 373     logs aren't filled with constant requests to cron.php. The disadvantage is
 374     that you need to have access to a command-line version of php.</p>
 375   <blockquote>
 376     <pre>/opt/bin/php /web/moodle/admin/cron.php
 377
 378
 379 (Windows) C:\apache\php\php.exe C:\apache\htdocs\moodle\admin\cron.php
 380
 381 </pre>
 382   </blockquote>
 383   <h4>Automatically running the script every 5 minutes</h4>
 384   <p><b>On Unix systems</b>: Use <b>cron</b>. Edit your cron settings from the commandline
 385     using &quot;crontab -e&quot; and add a line like:</p>
 386   <blockquote>
 387     <pre>*/5 * * * * wget -q -O /dev/null http://example.com/moodle/admin/cron.php</pre>
 388   </blockquote>
 389   <p>Usually, the "crontab" command will put you into the 'vi' editor. You enter
 390      "insert mode" by pressing "i", then type in the line as above, then exit insert mode by
 391      pressing ESC.  You save and exit by typing ":wq", or quit without saving using ":q!" (without the quotes).</p>
 392   <p><b>On Windows systems</b>: The simplest way is to use this little package <a href="http://moodle.org/download/moodle-cron-for-windows.zip" title="Click to download this package (150k)" target="_blank">moodle-cron-for-windows.zip</a>
 393     which makes this whole thing very easy. You can also explore using the built-in
 394     Windows feature for "Scheduled Tasks".</p>
 395   <p>On web hosts: Your web-based control panel may have a web page that allows
 396     you to set up this cron process. Ask your administrator for details on how
 397     it works.</p>
 398   <p></p>
 399 </blockquote>
 400 <h3 class="sectionheading"><a name="course"></a>10. Create a new course</h3>
 401 <blockquote>
 402   <p>Now that Moodle is running properly, you can create a course. </p>
 403   <p>Select &quot;Create a new course&quot; from the Admin page (or the admin
 404     links on the home page).</p>
 405   <p>Fill out the form, paying special attention to the course format. You don't
 406     have to worry about the details too much at this stage, as everything can
 407     be changed later by the teacher.</p>
 408   <p>Press &quot;Save changes&quot;, and you will be taken to a new form where
 409     you can assign teachers to the course. You can only add existing user accounts
 410     from this form - if you want to create a new teacher account then either ask
 411     the teacher to create one for themselves (see the login page), or create one
 412     for them using the &quot;Add a new user&quot; on the Admin page.</p>
 413   <p>Once done, the course is ready to customise, and is accessible via the &quot;Courses&quot;
 414     link on the home page.</p>
 415   <p>See the &quot;<a href="./?file=teacher.html">Teacher Manual</a>&quot; for more details
 416     on course-building.</p>
 417 </blockquote>
 418 <p>&nbsp;</p>
 419 <p align="CENTER"><font size="1"><a href="." target="_top">Moodle Documentation</a></font></p>
 420 <p align="CENTER"><font size="1">Version: $Id$</font></p>
 421 </body>