Debian Wheezy 500 error

Debian Wheezy 500 error

by Ed Dixon -
Number of replies: 5

Hi,

I have run into a problem with a fresh install of Moodle 2.5.1 Stable on a local server. Following the installation docs everything should be right. I have checked and rechecked permissions etc and can find no difference from this installation and any I have done in years past except that the new PHP 5.4 does not have the same configuration options in the php.ini file and I am thinking that could be the cause. info.php runs in the moodle and moodle/admin folders so it does not appear to be a permissions error.

Does anyone have any experience with this 500 error (which is pretty vague) and dealing with current the Debian stable packages Moodle combo (mySQL 5.531, PHP 5.4.4-14)? Are these packages to new or is there something else I am missing? Any help appreciated at this point.

Thanks,

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In reply to Ed Dixon

Re: Debian Wheezy 500 error

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
Hi Ed

Did you go "apt-get install moodle"? Then read, 'Debian based Linux: Ban "apt-get install moodle"!' https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=196512.

This is my suggestion: "Installing Moodle on a Debian-based LAMP server" http://www.syndrega.ch/?p=38.
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: Debian Wheezy 500 error

by Ed Dixon -

Hello Visvanath,

Thank you for your helpful reply. No, I did not apt-get install Moodle. That method has always failed for me and forces dependencies which conflict with my needs. I have tried both GIT and zip download installations.  I did look at your LAMP recommendation and found it an excellent resource however, it does seem to be based on the older Moodle and PHP versions which I have never had any problems with in the past. Having now tried previous versions of Moodle which worked in Debian 6.0 and 7.0 prior to these latest versions I feel certain it must be either the newer version of MySQL or PHP causing the problems here.

I guess the next step will be to start apt pinning to the older versions of PHP and MySQL until I locate the problem?

I do not know why this thought just came to me, having built these on an almost monthly basis and dealt with dependency problems in the past, but would a best practice strategy for building Linux systems to host Moodle be to pin the dependencies to the recommended requirements of the chosen Moodle version. This could make the work easier in the long run but would it be seen as a draw back to the end Linux user using the system? 

Thanks,

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In reply to Ed Dixon

Re: Debian Wheezy 500 error

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
Hi Ed

I couldn't guess that you are thorough with Debian, sorry for that.

What you say is, if one takes the latest Debian stable (7.1) LAMP and the latest Moodle stable (2.5.1+) and follow the procedure I've documented, it gives an Apache 500 error?

I could check that on Monday evening. If anybody has time before that, please try it and report back.
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: Debian Wheezy 500 error

by Ed Dixon -

Well, I can not say LAMP will run or fail for sure on 7.1 as I am hosting on lighttpd instead of Apache and on a very minimal Debian server build but I would like to know if this is successful. I did try pinning back the PHP version but still same 500 error. I was unsuccessful in several attempts to pin MySQL to the 5.1 version with dependency errors on 7.1. I am now considering trying MariaDB as an alternative to MySQL and seeing how that goes and worst case a squeeze chroot to match the listed Moodle PHP and MySQL versions at this point. If you have the time, it could prove very useful to know if Moodle will run on the standard LAMP model in 7.1. 

Thanks,

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In reply to Ed Dixon

Re: Debian Wheezy 500 error

by Ed Dixon -

I can now confirm that it is running fine in a squeeze chroot on the same 7.1 Debian with 3.2.0-4-amd64 kernel as before.

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