Moodle and the Great Firewall of China

Moodle and the Great Firewall of China

by Alejandro Garcia -
Number of replies: 6

Hi Moodlers,

First things first, thank you for this opportunity to become part of the community, I am new here.

A bit of background, we are a Spanish online school, on the early stages yet, targeting Chinese users in Mainland China (other geographies will come later, hopefully). 

We had an LMS with an integrated virtual classroom until very recently, which worked fine mostly, but at times, users in China had problems logging in, loading documents, etc. The company that provided this "white-label-solution", based in India, had the servers in the US, and used AWS to deliver content globally, the closest to China being Hong Kong. 

After reading a lot online, we came to realize that the best solution for us would probably be to host our e-learning platform (LMS+ web conferencing tool) inside of China, to avoid being blocked or slowed down by the firewall.

This is where MOODLE comes into play. A few days ago I discovered MoodleCloud, which with the paid option for schools would be quite interesting for us (easy set up, no technical requirements and affordable). We are a small team, with a limited budget and no IT department, so we need a ready-to-go solution, which MoodleCloud seems to offer perfectly (with its limits of course). PROBLEM? MoodleCloud can be hosted only in Australia, US and Ireland (we chose Ireland for our free account, just to play around and become familiar with the system).

Not having our own domain is not a huge deal, since the Moodle LMS could be accessed from our own WordPress, so students would not need to type "example.moodle.school" to access the system. We have already contacted the only Moodle Partner in China, to consider what the options from their side are, but haven't got much info yet.

We have our website hosted with "Mochahost" in the US, and they use CloudFlare (linked to our website) to reach 150+ data centers worldwide, including a few inside of China.

The question is, considering all these things: our limited budget, technical ability, time, and users location (China mainly and other countries too) would it be possible to host MoodleCloud inside of China or host it with our WP site and use cloudflare to try and deliver content to mainland China? We also need it to be integrated with BigBlueButton to have the actual live classes, and recordings as well (does BBB need to be hosted separately to have disk space for recordings or is it hosted together with MC?).

I know this is a tricky situation, so any help we could receive from the community would be much appreciated.

Thanks a lot in advance,

Alex

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In reply to Alejandro Garcia

Re: Moodle and the Great Firewall of China

by James Steerpike -

I think it is unlikely the GFW will set out to block your site. However, the GFW works by preventing users within the mainland from connecting to IP addresses and if a closely related IP address has content judged to be unsuitable, a whole range of sites can be blocked. You would be the innocent bystander. In addition there are times when there is an internet  crackdown - usually a party conference  or times when the Party feels vulnerable to criticism. If the unrest in Hong Kong leads to action against the protests, a lot more sites may get blocked. It is a real risk. All you can do is change IP addresses if you are blocked.  If you are the target, your new site will be blocked as  well. Otherwise your site will be able to be accessed from inside China.

Getting a .com.cn  address would probably help but Moodlecloud does not have that option. My sites have usually been in the US or Singapore and I have had to switch IP address a couple of times. Check with your provider how easy it is to do this. The US West Coast is a good option. with lower costs and fat cables across the Pacific.

What do the engineers say? Cheap, reliable, requires little technical knowledge. You get 2 out of 3 with Moodle.


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In reply to Alejandro Garcia

Re: Moodle and the Great Firewall of China

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
Sad to hear that China is not blessed by the Cloud. At least not the good ones. There are plenty of clouds of the other sorts, right now over Hong Kong.
sad

Anyway, coming back to the problem, if the users are behind the Great Wall, it is most logical for me to host the server behind it too. I would access the site through a VPN.

For details see these previous discussions:
- https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=388214
- https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=387806
- https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=277771
found through the search function https://moodle.org/mod/forum/search.php?id=5.
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: Moodle and the Great Firewall of China

by James Steerpike -
Registering a Chinese website is not as simple as it is for most countries.
Set up a Subsidiary in China

Whether to set up one’s own website, or open a store presence on Chinese e-commerce platforms such as Tmall and JD.com, investors will first need to set up a subsidiary in China. A scan of the company’s business license needs to be submitted when completing the website registration and filing procedures with the MIIT. (Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information)

They ask for

  • A completed .CN domain application form
A copy of the business License (registered in China) A copy of the signatory’s national ID. Note that the signatory must be a Chinese citizen and has a valid PRC personal ID.

I have always picked up a cheap domain name  and taken my chances. Depends on your budget.
Average of ratings: Useful (1)
In reply to James Steerpike

Re: Moodle and the Great Firewall of China

by asher kareem -

The Great Firewall (GFW) of China is known as a filtering system, which edits the Internet and stops users from visiting numerous webpages and social media platforms. Since Internet censorship under the GFW is inescapable in China, utilizing a VPN to bypass it is vital. To evade the Great Firewall of China, just Sign up for a VPN service like VyprVPN provides a number of dissimilar VPN protocols, such as proprietary Chameleon technology that overthrows VPN blocking.

Go for https://vpn.review/avoid-gfw-china/ this site to learn more about bypassing The Great Firewall of China . Just go for the guidelines for downloading your VPN and direct the app on your chosen device(s). Now log in with your credentials, and pick which server to interconnect to. VyprVPN allows you to pick from over 70 server locations all around the world, so you can choose a location free of censorship. Utilize the Internet or your applications as you normally do, and go for an open, free and Internet experience.

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In reply to James Steerpike

Re: Moodle and the Great Firewall of China

by Tom Curtis -

I have previously tried to register a bank account in Hong Kong, and the issue seems to be similar. However, this didn't require to be a citizen but physically visit HK. Have you tried to do it through the HK company? - I bet its much easier. 

Due to the new security law, I am however very cautious doing anything in that region. This is too unstable (especially if you are a U.S citizen). And just to mix up the discussion a bit, I found another research which might be useful for you.

Most likely you have solved the issue by now, if not, keep us posted.

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