Your reason for going VPS is negated IF you continue to use the older (non-VPS) methods of installing/updating and upgrading Moodle. Time for your 'basic knowledge' to up a rung!
First, hope you have an appropriate plan for the VPS:
GoDaddy VPS hosting Plans
Offers CentOS (6.4), Fedora (14), or Windows (2008)
"CentOS Version 6.4 is the operating system of choice for those looking for a highly stable version of Linux that offers enterprise-level reliability."
http://www.godaddy.com/hosting/vps-hosting.aspx
It's LTS (long term support which means
CentOS-6 updates until November 30, 2020
http://wiki.centos.org/FAQ/General#head-fe8a0be91ee3e7dea812e8694491e1dde5b75e6d
Not true of Feodra and certainly NOT Windows
One of the reasons in going VPS is one does't have the restrictions of a shared plan, although one could restrict themselves by purchasing the 'economy package' ... 1 Gig RAM, 40 GB storage ... example.
Here's the **REAL** advantage ...
one can install Moodle, update Moodle and upgrade Moodle via git.
http://docs.moodle.org/26/en/Git_for_Administrators
Yes, it's a learning curve, but once over the hump you'll be glad you spent the time and it will be time well spent.
Assumes CentOS 6.x and a typically installed and configured AMP stack (Apache/MySQL/PHP with git installed via yum.
Installing Moodle via git:
Create the DB for Moodle:
mysql -u [root] -p[password]
from the mysql> prompt:
create database moodle character set utf8 collate utf8_unicode_ci;
\q to quit mysql
Install Moodle via git:
login as root
cd /var/www
mkdir moodledata
chown apache:apache moodledata
git clone git://git.moodle.org/moodle.git html
cd html
git branch -a
git branch --track MOODLE_25_STABLE origin/MOODLE_25_STABLE
git checkout MOODLE_25_STABLE
cd html/admin/cli/
php install.php
This last script will prompt for those items seen in the Web based install.
Once completed make sure everything is readable by apache user:
cd /var/www/html/
chown apache:apache * -R
Hit the site with browser. Login. Enjoy!
Example: updating a Moodle 2.5.x that was installed via git to the highest most secure version of 2.5.5 is as simple as the following commands:
1st backup site:
mysqldump -u [user] -p[password] moodle > /home/backup/moodlebackup-$(date +%Y%m%d%-H%M%S).sql
tar -cvf /home/backup/moodlecode-$(date +%Y%m%d%-H%M%S).tar /var/www/html
tar -cvf /home/backup/moodledata-$(date +%Y%m%d%-H%M%S).tar /var/www/moodledata
Now update the site:
cd /var/www/html/
php admin/cli/maintenance.php --enable
git pull
php admin/cli/upgrade.php --non-interactive
php admin/cli/cron.php
php admin/cli/purge_caches.php
Hit the site with browser and login as admin level user.
Go to Notifications and acquire the plugin updates - if there are any.
The above two routines could be put into an executable script in /usr/local/bin/
belonging to and executable by root user ONLY.
The 1st called 'backup'.
The 2nd called 'updatemoodle'.
Once those scripts are in place and made executable by root user, to update a Moodle now it's just two commands as root user:
backup [ENTER]
and when that's ifinished
updatemoodle [ENTER]
Done!
'spirit of sharing', Ken
