Installing Moodle 2.x on CentOS 5.7

This particular entry deals with installing (not migrating) a base Moodle 2.x installation on CentOS 5.7. A few non-standard packages were recommended at the time of writing this, so some sub-entries were made to document those steps separately.

This assumes the base installation of CentOS 5.7 has been completed and the server has connectivity to the web.

Login as root/su

Note: This installation does not default to an innodb database, As I'm a bit pressed for time at the moment, I'll either update this post, or create a new one on converting the database to innodb.



0. Update OS
yum update -y

1. Install Mysql5.5
See this post: http://noveckg.blogspot.com/2012/01/installation-of-mysql-55-on-centos-5x.html


2. Install Apache
yum install httpd*

3. Install php 5.3 
See this post: http://noveckg.blogspot.com/2012/01/installing-php-53-on-centos-5x.html

4. Install php accelerator (for performance)
See this post: http://noveckg.blogspot.com/2012/01/installation-of-apc-on-php-53-centos-5x.html

5. Download latest tarball and install into webroot
cd /temp
download moodle latest: http://download.moodle.org/download.php/stable22/moodle-latest-22.tgz
tar xzvf moodle-latest-22.tgz
cd moodle-latest-22.tgz
cp –r moodle/* /var/www/html/

6. Create empty database in MySQL

mysql -u root -p yourpasswordhere
At the mysql prompt:
CREATE DATABASE mydbname CHARSET 'utf8';
GRANT select,insert,update,delete,create,drop,index,alter
ON mydbname.*
TO mymoodleuser@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'moodleuserpassword';
flush privileges;
quit;


7. Check web root permissions
cd /var/www/html
chown –R root:root *
chmod –R 755 *

8. Create MoodleData Folder (outside of web root)
mkdir /usr/moodledata
cd /usr/moodledata
chown -R apache:apache *
chmod –R 700 *

Note: Check here for security recommendations: http://docs.moodle.org/20/en/Security_recommendations

9. Setup Config.php
use instructions from here for a new installation: http://docs.moodle.org/21/en/RedHat_Linux_installation

10. Configure Apache to read from Moodle Data
nano /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.confAdd to end of file

[Directory "/usr/moodle/mymoodle"]*
DirectoryIndex index.php
AcceptPathInfo on
AllowOverride None
Options None
Order allow,deny
Allow from all

[/Directory]*
*substitute the [] with <> !!
11. Setup the Moodle Cron
nano /etc/crontab
add line
*/5 * * * * php /var/www/html/admin/cli/cron.php

12. Moodle!
Open up a web browser on the server and hit: http://localhost/admin
Install and configure as desired.


Happy Moodle-2-ing !

-noveck