How to Install Moodle on Debian 11

Moodle is a popular, free, and open-source Course Management system based on PHP released under the GNU General Public License.

The Moodle platform is highly customizable and takes a modular approach to features, so it is extensible and adaptable to your needs. It is probably most popular open source learning management platform available today.

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Moodle on your Debian 11 OS.

Step 1: Update Operating System

Update and upgrade the system repositories to make sure all existing packages are up to date:

$ sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

Step 2: Install Apache webserver

Apache web server is available on the Debian repository and can be installed via apt package manager by executing the following command:

$ sudo apt install apache2

You can start the Apache service and configure it to run on startup by entering the following commands:

$ sudo systemctl start apache2
$ sudo systemctl enable apache2

Verify the status of the Apache service using systemctl status command:

$ sudo systemctl status apache2

Output:

● apache2.service - The Apache HTTP Server
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/apache2.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running)
       Docs: https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/
    Process: 459 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/apachectl start (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
   Main PID: 666 (apache2)
      Tasks: 6 (limit: 2301)
     Memory: 24.3M
        CPU: 439ms
     CGroup: /system.slice/apache2.service
             ├─666 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
             ├─677 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
             ├─678 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
             ├─679 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
             ├─680 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
             └─681 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start

You can test to make sure everything is working correctly by navigating to:

http://your-IP-address

If everything is configured properly, you should be greeted by the Apache2 Debian Default Page, as seen below.

Step 3: Install PHP and PHP extensions for Moodle

By default, Debian 11 comes with PHP version 7.4.

You can install PHP and required PHP extensions using the following command:

$ sudo apt install php libapache2-mod-php php-iconv php-intl php-soap php-zip php-curl php-mbstring php-mysql php-gd php-xml php-pspell php-json php-xmlrpc

Verify if PHP is installed.

php -v

Output: PHP 7.4.28 (cli) (built: Feb 17 2022 16:17:19) ( NTS )
Copyright (c) The PHP Group
Zend Engine v3.4.0, Copyright (c) Zend Technologies
    with Zend OPcache v7.4.28, Copyright (c), by Zend Technologies

Step 4: Install MariaDB

We will use MariaDB as the database system for Moodle (Moodle supports MariaDB/MySQL and PostgreSQL).

You can install MariaDB with the following command:

$ sudo apt install mariadb-server mariadb-client

The commands below can be used to stop, start and enable MariaDB service to start automatically at the next boot:

$ sudo systemctl start mariadb
$ sudo systemctl stop mariadb
$ sudo systemctl enable mariadb

Also, you can verify the status of the MariaDB service using systemctl status command:

$ sudo systemctl status mariadb

Output:

● mariadb.service - MariaDB 10.5.15 database server
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/mariadb.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running)
       Docs: man:mariadbd(8)
             https://mariadb.com/kb/en/library/systemd/
   Main PID: 16987 (mariadbd)
     Status: "Taking your SQL requests now..."
      Tasks: 8 (limit: 2287)
     Memory: 63.0M
        CPU: 1.403s
     CGroup: /system.slice/mariadb.service
             └─16987 /usr/sbin/mariadbd

Then open the MariaDB default configuration file:

$ sudo nano /etc/mysql/mariadb.conf.d/50-server.cnf

Under ‘[mysqld]‘ line, paste the following configuration:

default_storage_engine = innodb
innodb_file_per_table = 1
innodb_file_format = Barracuda

Save and exit, then restart MariaDB service:

$ sudo systemctl restart mariadb

Step 5: Create Database

Log into the MariaDB prompt:

$ sudo  mysql -u root

To create a database, database user, and grant all privileges to the database user run the following commands:

MariaDB [(none)]> CREATE DATABASE moodledb;
MariaDB [(none)]> CREATE USER 'moodle_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'Moodle_Passw0rd!';
MariaDB [(none)]> GRANT ALL ON moodledb.* TO 'moodle_user'@'localhost';
MariaDB [(none)]> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
MariaDB [(none)]> EXIT

Step 6: Download Moodle

We will now download the latest stable Moodle version from the Moodle Official site.

Use the following command to download Moodle:

$ sudo wget https://download.moodle.org/download.php/direct/stable400/moodle-4.0.1.zip

Extract file into the folder /var/www/html/ with the following command:

$ sudo unzip moodle-4.0.1.zip -d /var/www/html/

Then, create a new directory in /var/www/html directory:

$ sudo mkdir /var/www/html/moodledata

Enable permission for the Apache webserver user to access the files:

$ sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/moodle/
$ sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/moodle/
$ sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/moodledata/

Step 7: Configure Apache Web Server for Moodle

Navigate to /etc/apache2/sites-available directory and run the following command to create a configuration file for your installation:

$ sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/moodle.conf

Add the following content:

<VirtualHost *:80>

ServerAdmin [email protected]

ServerName your-domain.com
ServerAlias www.your-domain.com
DocumentRoot /var/www/html/moodle

<Directory /var/www/html/moodle/>
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
</Directory>

ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/your-domain.com_error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/your-domain.com_access.log combined

</VirtualHost>

Save the file and Exit.

Enable the virtual host: