Hi,
Can any one tell me if there is a way to Bulk Archive courses in Moodle 3.1. And more specifically is there a way to archive by a certain semester/term i.e. Archive all Fall 2017 courses only? Is there a way to do this either via the GUI, plug-in or on the server back-end?
Thanks for any help you can provide.
You have options ...
https://www.google.com/search?q=moodle+plugin+bulk+archive+courses+in+a+category
A plugin: https://moodle.org/plugins/tool_coursearchiver
Command line
in admin/cli/ there is a backup.php script that could be looped through a course ID list (text/ascii) with nothing but the course ID (that list made via DB query from CLI to produce the CID list desired).
The backup.php script does have an option for destination directory - where the backups are to be saved ... highly recommended to prevent getting lost in the sea of files in moodledata and makes it easier to transfer off the Moodle server onto device/shared drive/bucket/mountpoint, etc.
Might also check into the use of 'moosh' - CLI only.
and https://moosh-online.com/commands/
for some example commands.
Using CLI takes apache out of the loop.
'spirit of sharing', Ken
Thanks Ken,
I like the command line option you mentioned. Is it possible for you to provide an example of how to point the backup.php to the text/ascii file. So that it will read the course id's in the ascii file and backup the courses listed in the file? I know how to edit the php file I'm looking for what to change in the file so that it knows to read from the text file.
Any additional information you can provide would be a big help.
Thanks again.
Modify as you see fit ... ;)
First, move all the courses to be archived to an 'archived' category. Can do
that via Moodle Admin UI. Hide all those courses. DB query below could add a variable for that category ID.
Manually create an archive directory on your largest partition ... for sake of example, let's say that's /home/.
mkdir /home/archive
*** The backup.php script will use the site settings for backups - Site Admin menu.
Scripts below ... replace [] with appropriate info
cd [/PATH/TO/MOODLECODE]/admin/cli/
nano to create the following scripts:
----
getcourseids
mysql -u root -p'[PASS]' -e "use [DB4MOODLE];select id from mdl_course where visible='0'"; > courseids.txt;cat courseids.txt
edit courseids.txt and remove the first line ... that's the column heading.
-----
niclbackups
#!/bin/bash
#
cd /[PATH/TO/MOODLECODE]/admin/cli/;
for i in `cat [/PATH/TO/MOODLECODE]/admin/cli/courseids.txt`
do
echo "Course ID in que:" $i;
php backup.php --courseid=$i --destination=/home/archive/
done
ls -l /home/archive/;
echo 'Done!';
First, run getcourseids .... from location of scripts.
source getcourseids
edit the courseids.txt file - remove first line
Run the niclibackups
source niclibackups
You could, of course, make getcourseids and niclibackups executable by root.
Depending upon how many courses, how 'large' they are, etc. even the command line scripts could take hours.
And, you might need to monitor in a terminal window disk free space.
watch 'df'
'spirit of sharing', Ken
Thank you Ken.
The script you provided was very helpful. I did have to make a small change to it, as it threw an error. After digging around in Google I was able to correct the issue and use the script. You saved me a ton of time.
Thank again.
Just in case anyone else tries to use it this is what the final script looked like:
#!/bin/bash
#
cd /ctdlc/moodle31/admin/cli/;
for i in $(cat [/PATH/TO/MOODLECODE]/admin/cli/courseids.txt)
do
echo "Course ID in que:" $i;
php backup.php --courseid=$i --destination=/home/archives/
done
ls -l /home/archives/;
echo 'Done!';
Welcome! Congrats! Your first bash shell script for moodle? ;)
And just in case anyone reads his adjustments ... they are specific to his server setup.
The cat [/PATH/TO/MOODLECODE] in his script could have read:
/ctdlc/moodle31
All is well that ends well, though! ;)
'spirit of sharing', Ken
Hi Ken,
Yes it was my first. I'm just getting into scripting on the Linux/Moodle side. I'm more used to Blackboard LMS.
I know this not related but do you have a similar way to bulk delete courses via the same method. By reading from a text file and deleting the courses that's listed in the file. We would like to delete certain courses after they are backed and leave only a semester and 1/2 of courses.
Thanks for all your help.
-Sean
You might check into installing moosh - CLI only. It can be scripted.
See: https://moosh-online.com/commands/
Several commands for which there is no equiv in the Moodle Admin UI.
'spirit of sharing', Ken
Hi,
I have been using the information Ken Provided for bulk archiving. Now I'm trying to do the same on an older version of Moodle 2.6.3. However there is not backup.php script in this version only an automated_backup.php script.
Can anyone provide some additional details as to how to perform bulk archiving in an older version of Moodle.
Can I copy the backup.php script from a newer version and use it on Moodle 2.6.3 without issue?
Any additional help is appreciated.
Thank you,
Yep ... 2.7 was when the cli backup.php script first appeared - none for 2.6.x. Don't have a functioning 2.6 up anywhere to do a quick test soooooooo ....
And, yes, you could try that ... copy a 2.7.x backup.php script into admin/cli/ of the 2.6.
And try it ... think I'd try course id 1 (that's the front page - which you can't restore anyway) cause it's generally small as far as a backup is concerned *and* use the option to save into destination directory .. *NOT* filedir. Make sure your 2.6 is set to use what it called 'experimental compression' - gzip instead of zip. That will make your manually created backups forward compatible - or less prone to issues ... me thinks.
If that doesn't work, get moosh ... but here again, one might need to install a version of moosh that isn't too high ... can't tell you which one, but here's the link:
https://moodle.org/plugins/pluginversions.php?id=522
I can re-call tinkering with that ... I did have multiple versions of moosh on same server ... fairly easy to do because the command you create to use is an alias ... had a 'moosh' which pointed to the highest version ... and a 'moosh29' which was aliased to the 29 version of moosh.
The actual moosh directories changed slightly ... moosh and moosh29.
'spirit of sharing', Ken
Hi Ken,
Can you tell me how to modify the script to use --courseshortname instead of --courseid
I'm assuming the $i needs to be modified since course shortname is alpha numeric. Just not sure how to do it.
Thank you for your help.
This is the script that works with the --courseid
#!/bin/bash
#
cd /ctdlc/moodle/admin/cli/;
echo pwd
for i in $(cat /ctdlc/moodle/admin/cli/2017Summer1.txt)
do
echo "Course ID in que:" $i;
php backup.php --courseid=$i --destination=/mnt/nas/archives/
done
ls -l /mnt/nas/;
echo 'Done!';
I would like to use --courseshortname
#!/bin/bash
#
cd /ctdlc/moodle/admin/cli/;
echo pwd
for i in $(cat /ctdlc/moodle/admin/cli/shortnameSU17.txt)
do
echo "Course Shortname in que:" $i;
php backup.php --courseshortname=$i --destination=/mnt/nas/shortnameSU17/
done
ls -l /mnt/nas/;
echo 'Done!';
Hi,
I'm also noticing that although I'm using the --destination option in my backup script.. The partition I have Moodle installed on continues to grow rather large after each set of backups I perform.
Do you know if there are copies of these courses being copied elsewhere other than the destination I'm sending them to?
The last time I ran the script I ran out of space.
I do see a bunch of log files in the moodle/backup/temp directory but that doesn't appear to be taking up the space that decreasing during each large backup job.
Thank you,
Hmmmm .... let's see ... we have a 2.6.x and using a script that first came with 2.7.x. While one could type:
php backup.php
and see the options ... of which --courseshortname=STRING is an option displayed, it's still a script for a higher version of Moodle than what you are using on 2.6. Short answer (no pun intended): nope. I cannot tell you how to get that working with 2.6.x. But feel free to hack away! ;)
Did you try it? Bet 'STRING' needs to be enclosed in quotes as many folks just copy the title of the course into short name ... and don't think I'd like that cause that would mean they also have 'spaces' and other characters in name of the backup file that might actually be mis-interpreted by bash (like \) or I have to use quotes around those filenames when using those files with other file operations. In other words, I'd advise not using shortnames.
In the preferences for backups of a 2.6 (site admin), aren't there options for what to use in the backup filename? Not only the course id but also the short name in the backup file name? Check that.
We'll do two in one response ... to the best of my knowledge only moodledata/backup/temp/ is used when making backups. And if the destination option to the cli script is working and you see that /mnt/whereever filing up with .mbz files and no folders/directories remain in moodledata/backup/temp/ it's doing what it should.
Do you have automated backups turn on or off?
Are you running cron job often enough? (think the recommendation today is once every minute). The moodledata/trashdir/ might fill up for a while until cron runs to clean it up. Or, you need to break apart your courseidlist.txt file ... fewer course ID's listed ... fewer backups. That would give you time to go into moodledata/trashdir/ and manually remove all files/directories.
Cannot do Vulcan Mind Meld with your 2.6 from here ... but can Google ... and lookie what Google found for:
"linux finding largest files on a system". ;)
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/140367/finding-all-large-files-in-the-root-filesystem
'spirit of sharing;, Ken
