Moodle LMS Docker setup

(ARM64 and AMD64 architectures supported)

Getting started

Before starting you should have

Host machine and youre able to secure shell (ssh) into it
Domain name that you have access to DNS (can use host public IP, can't change later)
set strong password for MYSQL_PASSWORD in compose file

a) Install deps on host

# 1) Update host system

sudo apt update && sudo sudo apt upgrade -y

# 2) Install docker & docker-compose

sudo apt install docker docker-compose

# 3) add current user to docker group

sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

In order for changes to take effect user must logout anf log back in.

# 4) exit to reset
exit 

# 5) checking after exit still gone
ubuntu@ip-0-0-0-0:~/lms__dirname$ groups
>ubuntu adm dialout cdrom floppy sudo audio dip video plugdev netdev lxd docker

# 6) if docker isnt there try rebooting
sudo reboot

Should be able to proceed if reboot was done, else Id wait for full resolution

b) preping docker files

Before continuing if you plan on having HTTPS traffic you need to add/edit files in ./moodle/

We will need to change the virtirual host config file to match the name of your site. If your domain name is awesome_site.com then the file name should be awesome_site.com.conf
Next edit the content in .conf to mactch your specific requirements
edit ./moddle/Dockerfile to match your site. I'll continue useing awesome_site.com

# file: ./moodle/awesome_site.com.conf

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName awesome_site.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/html/moodle

    # Certbot challenge proxy
    <Location /.well-known/acme-challenge>
        Require all granted
    </Location>

    # Additional Moodle configuration...
</VirtualHost>

make sure to change to awesome_stie.com to you

# file: ./moodle/Dockerfile

# Copy the virtual host configuration file
COPY nice.example.com.conf /etc/apache2/sites-available/nice.example.com.conf

# Enable the virtual host
RUN ln -s /etc/apache2/sites-available/nice.example.com.conf /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/nice.example.com.conf

# Install Certbot
RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y certbot python3-certbot-apache```
) creating docker containers

we will be coming back to these for later edits.

c) Build Docker image

Before starting the build we need to get the Moodle source code and add it to our ./moodle_data folder once finish we can start building

Add Moodle source code to our file tree
Build docker images
Use docker-compose to start up containers running our Moodle instace

# clone Moodle v4.2 to folder `moodle_data` in root dir !important do not change folder name
git clone -b MOODLE_402_STABLE https://github.com/moodle/moodle.git ./moodle_data

# build dockerfile
docker-compose build

# start containers
docker-compose up -d

Moodle should be accessable now on host IP on HTTP traffic I you had a domain routed to that IP check status.

Stoping docker

If this is the first time shutting down and you hadn't done clean-up yet, you'll need to before starting docer again.

# stoping docker process
docker-compose down

Logging

if error occurs when loading web page check logs for troubleshooting

docker-compose logs moodle

d) Post Build Cleanup

Before moving forward there are a couple things from the build that we will want to remove. The volume running Moodle is presistant and after adding SSL we don't want to overwrite.

Delete these 3 line ./moodle/Dockerfile and we will delete the *.conf file if you made one earlier. If not the proceed to Moodle installation

# Copy the virtual host configuration file
COPY nice.example.com.conf /etc/apache2/sites-available/nice.example.com.conf
# Enable the virtual host
RUN ln -s /etc/apache2/sites-available/nice.example.com.conf /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/nice.example.com.conf
# Install Certbot
RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y certbot python3-certbot-apache

SSL certbot signing

SSL_SIGN

Install Process

MOODLE_INSTALL

troubleshooting

TROUBLESHOOTING

sudo docker exec -it lms_moodle_1 /bin/bash

vim /etc/apache2/sites-available/learn.joshmclain.com.conf

jmclain-origin / docker-moodle