I am using moodle 3.2.2. In my institution, the system is that I work on a test VM first, then I request ITS to push that test VM image into the production VM. Therefore I only have access to the test moodle VM. Every time I make changes, I will make changes on the test moodle VM, then I ask ITS to automatically push that VM to the production moodle VM.
The problem is that on the production VM, moodle stores uploaded files or other bulk data in /var/www/moodledata, rather than in a database. Therefore it does not help if the moodle VM uses an external mysql server, as the external mysql database would not have contained all information. So if I make changes to the test VM and push the test VM image to the production VM, information in the production moodle VM /var/www/moodledata would be lost.
Is it possible to force moodle to store everything (except config.php, and plugin codes) in the mysql database itself? If so, then I can ensure all the course data are in the database, and pushing test VM image into the production VM will not affect the data.
If this is not possible, then perhaps I will not be able to use the test VM / production VM push model.....