Prerequisite

• PHP Settings
• PHP Extensions
• MySQL Settings
• MySQL Database
• Folder Structure
• Virtual Host File
• SSL Certificate

PHP Settings

Settings

1. Check and set these settings in your php.ini

memory_limit
============

memory_limit = 128M

session.save_handler
====================

session.save_handler = files

file_uploads
============

file_uploads = On

session.auto_start
==================

session.auto_start = 0


post_max_size and upload_max_filesize
=====================================

post_max_size = 500M
upload_max_filesize = 500M

Restart Server

1. Restart the web server after setting the above settings
   
   systemctl restart httpd.service

PHP Extensions

PHP Extensions

1. Install the below list of PHP extensions with the command below (a lot of these extensions are installed by default when installing PHP).  See Install PHP on how to install PHP.

• • • The iconv extension
    • The mbstring extension
    • The curl extension
    • The openssl extension
    • The tokenizer extension
    • The xmlrpc extension
    • The soap extension
    • The ctype extension
    • The zip extension
    • The gd extension
    • The simplexml extension
    • The spl extension
    • The pcre extension
    • The dom extension
    • The xml extension
    • The intl extension
    • The json extension

yum install php-mbstring curl php-xmlrpc php-soap php-gd php-xml php-intl php-json

MySQL Settings

MySQL settings

Adding the configuration settings

1. Open my.cnf file
   
   vi /etc/my.cnf
   
   
2. Add the below config settings to the end of the file

[client]
default-character-set = utf8mb4

[mysqld]
innodb_file_format = Barracuda
innodb_file_per_table = 1
innodb_large_prefix

character-set-server = utf8mb4
collation-server = utf8mb4_unicode_ci
skip-character-set-client-handshake

[mysql]
default-character-set = utf8mb4

Restart the MySQL daemon

1. Restart the MySQL daemon after adding the configuration changes

systemctl restart mysqld

MySQL Database

Setting up the MySQL Database

1. Log into MySQL as root, providing the password at the prompt
   
   mysql -u root -p
   
   
2. Create the database with the command below
   
   CREATE DATABASE moodle DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;
   
   
3. Create a user/password combination with appropriate permissions for the database (replace moodle, moodleuser and yourpassword with an appropriate database name, username and password)
   
   GRANT SELECT,INSERT,UPDATE,DELETE,CREATE,CREATE TEMPORARY TABLES,DROP,INDEX,ALTER ON moodle.* TO 'moodleuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'yourpassword';
   
   
   
4. Flush the privileges
   
   flush privileges;
   
   
5. Exit the database
   
   exit;

Folder Structure

Creating a Moodle Folder Structure

Moodle Data Folder

1. Navigate to /var/www
   
   cd /var/www
   
   
2. Create Moodle datafolder, replacing "foldername" with an appropriate name
   
   mkdir moodledata-foldername
   
   
3. Change the owner of the folder
   
   chown -R apache:apache moodledata-foldername

Moodle Installation Folder

1. Navigate to /var/www
   
   cd /var/www
   
   
2. Create Moodle datafolder, replacing "foldername" with an appropriate name
   
   mkdir foldername

Virtual Host File

Moodle Virtual Host File

1. Create a virtual host configuration file for Moodle, like the example below (replacing subdomain.domain.com with an appropriate name).  For more information on how to do this, see Apache Virtual Hosts

<VirtualHost subdomain.domain.com:80>
        ServerName subdomain.domain.com

        Redirect permanent / https://subdomain.domain.com

</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost subdomain.domain.com:443>
        ServerName subdomain.domain.com

        DocumentRoot "/var/www/subdomain.domain.com"
        <Directory "/var/www/subdomain.domain.com">

        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
        # AllowOverride controls what directives may be placed in .htaccess files.
        AllowOverride All

        # Controls who can get stuff from this server file
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all

        </Directory>

        <IfModule mpm_peruser_module>
                ServerEnvironment apache apache
        </IfModule>

</VirtualHost>

SSL Certificate

Obtaining a Certificate

1. Run the command below (replacing example.com with the actual domain details)
   
   certbot --apache -d example.com
   
   
2. Follow the prompts of the application
3. At the option, "Please choose whether or not to redirect HTTP traffic to HTTPS, removing HTTP access," choose 1.  Https redirection is configured in the domains conf file

Please choose whether or not to redirect HTTP traffic to HTTPS, removing HTTP access.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
1: No redirect - Make no further changes to the webserver configuration.
2: Redirect - Make all requests redirect to secure HTTPS access. Choose this for
new sites, or if you're confident your site works on HTTPS. You can undo this
change by editing your web server's configuration.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Select the appropriate number [1-2] then [enter] (press 'c' to cancel):1

For more information, see Let's Encrypt Certificates