Video Tutorial - Install Moodle on a virtual Box from scratch

Video Tutorial - Install Moodle on a virtual Box from scratch

by Gerald Henzinger -
Number of replies: 10

Hello everyone,

The last days we dedicated ourselves on the production of a series of video tutorials. Moodle running in a Virtual Box is an interesting Setup for small  Institutions or for teachers, who want to develop their course locally on their computer.These Video tutorials is directed to Moodle users, who are not Ubuntu experts.

We used the Virtual Box 4.1.8, Ubuntu 11.10, Moodle 2.2, but you can install any version of Moodle you want, SSH, VNC, Webmin and phpMyAdmin for managing the Virtual Box.

We called this series Moodle in the box.

from falomundo on Vimeo
This tutorial shows you, how to create a new Virtual Box and how to configure it.

You have to download and install the Sun Virtual Box Software before.

from falomundo on Vimeo.
After the Setup of the Virtual box, we have to install the operating System. We installed the Ubuntu 11.10 Desktop, because of the GUI.

from falomundo on Vimeo.
After the installation of Ubuntu, we move on with the setup of the Webserver, better known as LAMP Stack.
L=Linux
A= Apache Webserver
M=MySQL Database
P=PHP Scripting
Remember "apt-get install LAMP-Server^". The most important command for this Chapter.

from falomundo on Vimeo.
The LAMP Server is up and running. Time to continue with the Moodle.
Moodle is a so called Course Management Software. Another term is Learning Management Software(LMS).
Basically, Moodle is a bunch of PHP Scripts and a Database.
We will use MySQL.
The Moodle installation is
-downloading Moodle.
-unpack it.
-copy it into the apache Folder.
-run the install procedure.
-change some permissions.(the Moodle install routine will tell you)
-install some PHP extensions.(the Moodle install routine will tell you)

from falomundo on Vimeo.
We installed the "openSSH" and the "VNC" to get direct access to the Virtual Box.
Now we want to install management tools for the MySQL Database and the Server, running on the Virtual Box.
Therefore we install the Webbased MySQL Management tool “phpMyAdmin” and Server management tool “Webmin”.

So, I hope this is useful for somebody.

Average of ratings: Useful (6)
In reply to Gerald Henzinger

Re: Video Tutorial - Install Moodle on a virtual Box from scratch

by Anne Krijger -

Hi Gerald,

I haven't looked at it, but the idea alone is very NICE! smile

Anne.

PS Maybe add the above text to Moodle docs and videos to Youtube?

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In reply to Gerald Henzinger

Re: Video Tutorial - Install Moodle on a virtual Box from scratch

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
Nice work, very useful. I've forwarded your links to a couple of others.

I use VirtualBox too for all sorts of testing. Virtualization is very practical in this case because I don't need additional hardware. But it also makes handing over a solution to an "end user" more complicated due to the additional abstraction layer. One can hide most of it, but it remains visible in the network configuration. For example, in the second half of your 3rd video, it appears as port-forwarding. You use NAT and forward the port 1080 of the host to port 80 of the VM.

I usually advice to use "bridged networking" so that the network interface of the VM is in the same LAN as the host network interface. As a result other computers in the LAN can communicate directly with the VM, no port-forwarding is necessary.

Just an idea.
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: Video Tutorial - Install Moodle on a virtual Box from scratch

by Gerald Henzinger -

Thank you for this comment,

You are right. With "Bridged Networking" the portforwarding becomes obsolete.

But we wanted to show NAT-Portforwarding, because in some situations, "bridged networking" is not possible.

For me, NAT-Portforwarding is better for experimental use, like a VBox on my Laptop, where i can connect to the VBox from the host wherever I want. With "bridged networking" i would need at least a loopback Networkconnection.

We mentioned the "bridged networking" for more static environment, where the network is stable. In this case, we showed the NAT-Portforwarding networking as an alternative.

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In reply to Gerald Henzinger

Re: Video Tutorial - Install Moodle on a virtual Box from scratch

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
A summary of the three possible network modes are explained in this presentation:
https://nsrc.org/workshops/2015/sanog25-virtualization/raw-attachment/wiki/Track2Agenda/virt-network-modes.pdf
or for a detailed discussion this article mentioned in the above presentation:
https://blogs.oracle.com/fatbloke/entry/networking_in_virtualbox1

(I know, this is an old discussion. The references are still valid.)
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In reply to Gerald Henzinger

Re: Video Tutorial - Install Moodle on a virtual Box from scratch

by Howard Miller -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers
Of course, to a great extent the Virtualbox part is irrelevant. It's still a useful tutorial for installing on Ubuntu.

I must say that I really don't like video tutorials as I never have time to watch them (as opposed to searching down a page of instructions). However, this is probably perfectly appropriate for your audience and I like the logical split of the topics.

One question... in the line 'sudo apt-get install lamp-server'. You advise that it is "very important to type a caret on the end" but don't say why it's important. I've never heard of that before and was intrigued to know what it does (and why it's important)?

Oh... and someone needs to find out how to pronounce Linux big grin big grin
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In reply to Gerald Henzinger

Re: Video Tutorial - Install Moodle on a virtual Box from scratch

by Tej Sarup -

Hi there,

 

Great videos!

(on a slightly different note, can you please tell me what software you used to create these fantastic tutorials?)

 

Thanks!

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In reply to Tej Sarup

Re: Video Tutorial - Install Moodle on a virtual Box from scratch

by Howard Miller -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

Gerald is no longer registered on this site, so I doubt you're getting a reply.

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In reply to Gerald Henzinger

Re: Video Tutorial - Install Moodle on a virtual Box from scratch

by Jason Morgan -

Great tutorial and videos!

One quick question though, after I added the :1080 to my config.php in the >wwwroot  I can access it from outside the VM fine but he says I need to change the name of my wwwroot but doesn't explain any further.

Any suggestions?

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In reply to Jason Morgan

Re: Video Tutorial - Install Moodle on a virtual Box from scratch

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
Bit late, I know. Just in case anybody else having the same problem.

That is why I advice bridged networking instead of NAT and port forwarding. See this post https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=199542#p870555 above. Then the VM is in the same LAN with the host and other computers in that LAN.

If not clear, just ask!
Average of ratings: Useful (1)