Ray, this is great! Out of curiosity, did you end up going the VPS route?
Well, now your fun can begin. Keep learning (and upgrading!)
Re: SUCCESS: Moodle 3.5 Installation Stalemate! - NOW installed
by Rick Jerz -
Number of replies: 13
In reply to Rick Jerz
Re: SUCCESS: Moodle 3.5 Installation Stalemate! - NOW installed
by Ray Havlin -
Yes it was inevitable in the end and really only the best choice.
The VPS environment is a beast to manage, of course, but I'm adept and can polish off the rough edges as I go.
In reply to Rick Jerz
Re: SUCCESS: Moodle 3.5 Installation Stalemate! - NOW installed
by Howard Miller -
Most web servers and databases "straight out of the box" are not remotely optimised for Moodle. Apache tends to be configured for serving static pages and MySQL/MariaDB for using very little memory.
Even some very basic tuning of parameters can make a big difference. See Performance_recommendations
In reply to Howard Miller
Re: SUCCESS: Moodle 3.5 Installation Stalemate! - NOW installed
by Ray Havlin -
Thanks Howard!
I’ve added this to my list to get up to speed.
Ray
In reply to Rick Jerz
Re: SUCCESS: Moodle 3.5 Installation Stalemate! - NOW installed
by Ray Havlin -
Rick
Amen brother! I’ve already made dozen of adjustments so far just identifying the low hanging fruit.
I’m also finding that the docs, code and interface are not
in synch - the result of our modern day agile approach to development. (I have
to be careful with my words as when I state factual information as people take it
as a criticism - which is never my intention)
I’m so grateful for the folks here who are supporting (and using) Moodle to get
real answers to the gaps in my knowledge and experience with Moodle.
Ray
In reply to Ray Havlin
Re: SUCCESS: Moodle 3.5 Installation Stalemate! - NOW installed
by Howard Miller -
The documentation is a wiki... if you find mistakes please consider correcting them. That's how it works
In reply to Howard Miller
Re: SUCCESS: Moodle 3.5 Installation Stalemate! - NOW installed
by Ray Havlin -
Well if I achieve that level of proficiency at some point, I'll be glad to do so. It would be unconscionable for me to make any corrections at this time as I'm a whole six weeks old in Moodle years.
In reply to Rick Jerz
Re: SUCCESS: Moodle 3.5 Installation Stalemate! - NOW installed
by mandy honeyman -
hello all, very grateful to find this thread having just experienced identical blockage over at GoDaddy where I do have VPS. However, even this VPS doesn't give me access to MySQL config and therefore I cannot change current DB configuration to use Barracuda and not Antelope.
I have been using Installatron to install my playpen Moodles just because it's so quick and easy (and when I tried to install manually a couple of years ago I think I ran into other issues). It is a bit sad not to be able to stay up-to-date.
But anyway, thanks everyone here for documenting and discussing these issues.
In reply to mandy honeyman
Re: SUCCESS: Moodle 3.5 Installation Stalemate! - NOW installed
by Howard Miller -
I've said it before and I expect I'll say it again... these "easy" installers can turn into 'the dog that bit you' when it comes to upgrades or anything goes wrong.
I find it surprising that a VPS doesn't allow access to MySQL configuration files. Surely that sort of thing is the point of having your own VPS. What OS is it running?
In reply to Howard Miller
Re: SUCCESS: Moodle 3.5 Installation Stalemate! - NOW installed
by Ken Task -
+5 or +10 or +20 to what Howard has said about one click installers and some hosting providers.
Case in point ... Tina ... posted in these forums asking for assistance in migrating from one hosting provider to another that granted greater control/access/etc. etc. She followed the directions for migrating a site ... got a tar ball of the code, did a mysqldump of DB, and (mistakenly) got a tar ball of moodledata. The 'tar ball' of moodledata was only 290KB ... huh? How is that possible? Should be in MB or Gig range depending upon the site ... but certainly NOT 290KB. She finally got curious enough to look at the config.php file on the site to be transferred and found that the path to moodle data was something like
/srv/customerlogin/.cpanel/someotherdir/someotherdir/moodledata/
See the .cpanel ... that's normally hidden from regular methods of viewing files ... then the otherdir/otherdir ... why so deep? No one over here in community would be able to guess in a million years that's how that provider did their Moodles, yet that provider (like many) flatly state they don't support apps of customer, didn't know what to do or tell her and to go to community forums for the apps ... for Moodle, that's this community.
Once she discovered that, able to tar ball up filedir of her buried moodledata and was able to transfer what was needed. New site up and running.
Have been involved with supporting another user that was sold a 'reseller' account from which one could allocate another server. Cpanel plus a nasty little thing called 'Web Hosting Management' (WHM). That op had allocated another server with some pretty hefty specs but was still having troubles bumping up config values to higher levels. On the allocated server one could find the config files and even edit them to tweak upwards ... but that would be the last time op would be able to use WHM as at the top of those config files a notice/warning ... "DO NOT MANUALLY EDIT THIS FILE. IT IS CONFIGURED BY WHM". If one checked WHM one could fine the item in need of tweaking would only go as high as 128M and no more - we needed 256M. Couldn't change the config of WHM ... commercial product if I re-call + their programmers probably wouldn't believe that a server needed to tweak that value that high.
Anyhoo .... not every hosting provider does things the same way. And shared hosting is the most restrictive there is. Sooooooooooooo .... in some cases, customers could be jumping out of the pan and into the fire!
Think all of providers of shared hosting (eventually) will have to move forwards and upwards as Amazon, Google Compute Engine, and Azure are getting easier and easier.
Saw one well known provider whose description of their higher than shared hosting leases was really the same machines, but fewer customers per server thus having more resources. Still shared though.
2 cents worth ...
'spirit of sharing', Ken
In reply to mandy honeyman
Re: SUCCESS: Moodle 3.5 Installation Stalemate! - NOW installed
by Ray Havlin -
I don't know if you saw it earlier in the thread, but I had a working 3.5.1 running on a shared environment with SQL 5.6 and Antelope, UT8_bin, etc. - and it ran just fine - sans emojis ;) However, it required a manual install by an outside tech who did not use the install script for the release.
So the real issue here is that the install script provided by HQ for 3.5.1 is 'enforcing' the additional requirements like Barracuda, utf8mb4, etc. even though the code doesn't actually require it - as my 3.5.1 shared environment installs confirms.
And Howard stated earlier that "he doesn't trust anybody's install script for this initial phase. He created his own file structure, assigns ownership and permissions, creates the database and then edits the config.php (by copying from
config-dist.php)."
This is where most of us can't keep up. So we are resigned to using the install.php provided with the release.
I personally wanted to meet all the most up-to-date requirements as a fresh install of the platform to maximize the longevity. That's my choice, but it would be nice if others could have the option of installing Moodle without enforcing the latest requirements.
In reply to Ray Havlin
Re: SUCCESS: Moodle 3.5 Installation Stalemate! - NOW installed
by Howard Miller -
Some points...
- Moodle 3.5 does *not* require utf8mb4. It just doesn't. I was even starting to doubt myself. I tried it last week with utf8 (not mb4). It installed no problem. It's *advised* but not required.
- Again, something I have said before, if you are running a server then some basic skills are really required. You should be able to create some directories and assign permissions. You should be able to create a new MySQL database and grant access rights. It's stuff to learn but it's not a big deal really. An afternoon's reading and experimenting will pay massive dividends. Promise!
- Given the above, you are not locked into anybody's install script. Not even the first part of the built in script. If you unzip the Moodle code, create the empty moodledata folder, grant the correct permissions, create an empty database, copy config-dist.php to config.php, edit it and set everything you just created then that's it! The install will run from there creating the database BUT (and this is the cool bit) you created all that stuff and know it's all done properly.
In reply to Ray Havlin
Re: SUCCESS: Moodle 3.5 Installation Stalemate! - NOW installed
by Ken Task -
I sometimes wonder ... but if one looks at things from a different perspective, there could be reasons ... the number of Moodle Partners has grown. That's good. MP's share back a part of their profits to Moodle HQ for further core development ... as well as provide some quality plugins of their own ... as well as hosting.
So there is a revenue stream/channel there and folks are encouraged to contact a MP ... for good reasons.
Another perspective ... Moodle has never had a way for admins to make a full site backup inside the stock Moodle yet there is a warning/strong suggestion a backup should be performed. Plugin?
Moodle has also never had a way to update or upgrade a site right inside Moodle as WordPress and Joomla has. Revenue stream? That's why SoftTacuMessup came along.
But maybe there are some very good technical reasons that should not be attempted.
Anyhoo ... it's open source and free ... if you are willing.
Again ... 2 cent opinion ...
'spirit of sharing', Ken