We had to do an emergency upgrade to Moodle 3.1.5+ last Wednesday to patch some security holes following the CVEs that allowed direct database manipulation, and didn't have time to test the upgrade prior to rolling it into production.
However, we have discovered that the "upgrade" to Moodle requires unoconv for assignment grading, which also requires a Libre Office installation. This just seems like a terrible idea to run something like that on a server, and I can't believe that it's a requirement...!
How do I get rid of the unoconv "feature" and go back to how things were before?
I created a bug report for this as well: https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-58403
Think I've read in these forums that if one removed the path to unoconv in paths that would stop Moodle from using that new 'feature'. Won't change the initial interface to grading I don't think so you might still have the panel that was supposed to display the converted documents PDF file. You should see, however, if the assignment called for submission of multiple files, links to those files.
Comment: yeah .. we get it ... you don't care for it ... obviously ... same post in three different forums ... one claiming a security issue, even. Dunno about that one .. see anything listed in CVE for it? Maybe with SLES one has much more to worry about ... like the recently discovered hole that's been present in linux kernel since 2009 and is related to the use of modeums and is remotely exploitable. Oh, yeah ... who uses dialup anymore?
Am wondering, myself, if this change was a result of the Moodle Association voting ... which now drives the bus for Moodle, me thinks. if it was, I'd like to know who to 'follow' so I could see what changes might really be forthcoming in future versions of Moodle.
All in all ... anyone using Moodle is an omicron tester ... and because it is free .. one might expect changes that are not deisired but are there ... and no chanage forth coming. But, am sure somone will point out that it's open source and you or someone you hire can change the code. ;)
Anyhooo ...
'spirit of sharing'. Ken
By pure coincidence, I was at a user's group meeting this afternoon and Assignment came up. The feeling was - completely without exception - that the PDF conversion was unusable (it either didn't work or it was far too slow) and, if it did work, that the PDF annotation feature was too clunky to be worth the bother.
The only people who were generally happy used the download/upload features for offline marking.
I really hate being negative but Assignment doesn't cut it for online marking - which is very unfortunate.
In reply to Howard Miller
Re: How to disable the unoconv requirement in Moodle 3.1?
by Chris Myers -
I did discover that apparently Moodle sets a default value during the upgrade, rather than defaulting to null and asking the user to enable it. So I'm hoping that after nulling out the value, that the screamers will calm down now...
In reply to Chris Myers
Re: How to disable the unoconv requirement in Moodle 3.1?
by Howard Miller -
"The screamers". Isn't that you?
It comes with a default value, but if it doesn't point to anything it won't try to do the conversion. If you have it working and want to switch it off you need to remove whatever is in that setting. None of this makes the slightest difference to the UI you get.
Don't get me wrong ... am not blindly defending it ... trying to be positive myself ... so maybe it's a good thing that many are having to 'deal with it'.
https://elearningindustry.com/the-5-best-free-annotation-tools-for-teachers
Found one that works slick for Goggle Drive hosted documents ... an addon to docs ... it enables annotating via voice recordings, comment box, etc..
'spirit of sharing', Ken
Also, it's definitely true, I haven't been very pleased with the change, that's for sure. Our end-users have been less than pleasant about the changes as well, and the proverbial messengers have been shot unfortunately. I feel sorry for the ed tech folks that are bearing the brunt of the hits.
I will say from a security perspective that it's general best practice to not install more than you need on a server, and that installing end-user packages like office suites is one such thing that should make sysadmins shudder (it definitely does me.) Office suites don't belong on servers, even when they have the "cool" features of allowing you to convert documents through a daemon.
It does make me wonder though -- the unoconv software hasn't had a commit in over a year (according to github,) so I'm hopeful for those implementing the technology that it is being actively reviewed and maintained.
Historically for the most part, Moodle upgrades have enhanced things, but in this case defaulting to a non-null value on a new feature that assumed that this software is installed on the system made things a lot more painful than it should be. We hadn't planned to go up to 3.x yet, but the CVEs released last week forced our hand and made it to where we didn't get to do any testing beforehand unfortunately. In the past, new features have seemed to be deployed as opt-in, especially when they needed third-party software to be installed. But since this one was opt-out, assuming that it knew what the path would be, it just made things rather a bit muddy.
In reply to Chris Myers
Re: How to disable the unoconv requirement in Moodle 3.1?
by Howard Miller -
As far as I know you just don't include the link to the Unoconv binary.
However, you are stuck with the new grading interface which assumes that the submitted file is a PDF. If it isn't the submission area will just be blank... you'll have to mark offline which you had to do anyway before.
However, I agree, it was much too big an ask to (effectively) make unoconv a requirement with very little in the way of fallback.
Hi Chris,
Unoconv is not required. It is an optional extra. If you do not provide a path to the binary, then there is no change and your assignments will continue to operate in the same fashion as before.
To use the PDF annotation you do still need to provide a path to Ghostscript. This is separate to the document conversion.
Andrew
In reply to Chris Myers
Re: How to disable the unoconv requirement in Moodle 3.1?
by Gus Hagelberg -
You can disable the pdf-annotator here under Plugins: Activity modules: Assignment: Feedback plugs: Manage assignment feedback plugins.
This new feature in Moodle 3.1.5 is really problematic. Please pass
this on to whoever. I really hope that the Moodle community is more
careful about introducing such new features in the future.
My arguments:
- its super slow. It takes forever for the documents to be converted to pdf
- Its a feature that I don't think that many people will use
- It doesn't work half the time and the page doesn't load
- It
is a gigantic break from the standard Moodle GUI. The Moodle navigation
sidebar is gone. To get back you have to click a link on the upper
right which is not standard Moodle GUI.
- It requires the additional installation of ghostscript and unoconv
- It requires version 0.7 of unoconv but there is not even a stable release of 0.7, only of 0.66
In reply to Gus Hagelberg
Re: How to disable the unoconv requirement in Moodle 3.1?
by Chris Myers -
I think that a big part of my confusion and "oh crap" is that the upgrade defaulted to including a path, instead of the default being null, so the feature basically turned itself on and broke things for us (thus triggering the wrath of faculty.) After discovering that, and removing the path, as far as I know things are back to normalish?
Sorry for the multirants, arriving back in the office after a long (long as in long days) week away at Ellucian Live only to find the office on fire (figuratively speaking) as a result of the emergency upgrade put me in a rather bad mood.