Front page FAQ
The Front Page FAQ has been constructed because the number of questions asked about the Front Page has seemed to grow considerably in recent times. This page is made up of questions originally located in the Beginning Administration FAQ
Why not use the Front Page Files area for restoring courses?
There are two excellent reasons you do not do this, the first is site/course security. It is easy to not delete the zip file you have restored, you get distracted, forget to do it, not realise that there is a problem. The Files area for the front page is not secure behind Moodle's native barriers, they are easily accessible to anyone who can work out to get there - which is almost anyone. So you may not be protecting your courses. The other issue is that a course backup can be interrupted by a lot of things and be faulty without anyone knowing it. If you restore in the Front Page, then you risk damaging your Front Page, which can break your site. It is easier to have a special course to allow Administrators and Teachers specifically to restore courses from.
I just restored a course to the Front Page Site files and now I am having serious trouble with the site
There are a number of issues here. Firstly, the Site files link in the Administrator's block is an open folder that anyone can access. Putting anything in there can expose is to anyone who wants to look.
Restoring Courses needs be done in the appropriate area. From an Administrator's point of view, it is better to have a single restoration point, a dummy course you can use to restore Courses within. It also allow the Administrator to use a single point from which elements or even whole courses can be exported throughout the whole Moodle.
Moodle provides you with a process that allows you to select where you want Courses to be restored to and how you want them restored, so the dummy course is a practicable solution, and it affords a modicum of consistency within the site.
This is not a problem for Teachers or Course Creators, they can Backup and Restore only in those pages that recognize them as having a Role greater than an Authenticated User or Student.
