安装Moodlezh:

首先，不要驚慌！ :-)

本指南說明第一次如何安裝Moodle，對於其中一些步驟有很多的細節試圖涵蓋大多數可能的web伺服器設定，所以這一頁看起來很長且複雜，不要驚慌，一旦你知道如何作你就可以在幾分鐘內安裝好Moodle！

如果您有問題請仔細閱讀此頁-在這裡回答了最常見的問題。如果您仍然有問題，你可以從Moodle社區透過moodle.org 使用Moodle尋求幫助。

安裝Apache、MySQL及PHP(AMP)提供了另一個操作說明來安裝Moodle在很多受歡迎的平台上。

另一個選擇是聯絡Moodle夥伴提供的Moodle主機，他可以幫你完整地維護Moodle，這樣你就可以忽略這裡的所有細節然後直接進到教育訓練中！

警告： 有些web主機廠商提供像是Fantastico一次點擊的Moodle安裝程式，雖然這些通常有效，但有時他們就是不能用或是eb主機使用很舊的Moodle版本，假如這些安裝有一個出錯，你最好的選擇通常還是從這裡的操作說明從頭開始，這幾乎肯定比較快。

假如你想執行Moodle在你自己的電腦上，這一頁看起來有點複雜，那麼請看我們的如何使用Moodle的完整安裝套件Windows版或Mac OS版的指南，浙江允許你建構一個Moodle站台但是這個主機不是在internet上的。

需求

Moodle主要是在Linux上使用Apache、MySQL及PHP開發(有時也被稱作LAMP平台)，但也有在Windows XP/2000/2003 (WAMP)、Solaris 10 (Sparc 及 x64)、Mac OS X及Netware 6作業系統上測試，支援的資料庫有PostgreSQL、Oracle及Microsoft SQL Server。

安裝Moodle在Winodws平台上的程序(如Windows Server、IIS及MSSQL)跟在LAMP平台上的程序有些微的不同，見Windows 2003的IIS安裝有更詳細資料。

在Windows Vista上安裝Moodle這一頁有助於解決在Windows Vista上安裝Moodle的空白頁問題。

要安裝Moodle的需求如下：

硬體

• 硬碟空間：160MB的空間 (最小)，你會需要更多的空間來儲存你的教學資料。
• 記憶體：256MB (最小)、1GB (建議)，一般的經驗法則是1G的RAM讓Moodle可以支援50個 同時的使用者，但是這得視你的硬體及軟體的搭配來看。
  • 注意如果你使用的是託管帳戶： 大部分商業網站上的託管帳戶會滿足硬碟及記憶體的需求，然而你應該聯絡你的web主機後台來確認你在註冊前就是符合的，詢問關於PHP記憶體限制或是MySQL問題的限制特別的重要，假如你要的主機沒有提供滿足這些需求的服務，或是你已經註冊了，加如他們不改變的話，詢問他們為什麼並且考慮移到其它的地方。

軟體

• Web伺服器軟體，大多數人使用Apache，但是Moodle應該可以在任何支援PHP的web伺服器下執行的很好，像是在Windows平台上的IIS，PHP把需求強加於web伺服器的版本上，然而這些是複雜的而且一般的意見是使用你選擇的web伺服器最新的版本。
• PHP腳本語言，(請注意安裝使用PHP-Accelerator安裝Moodle會有問題)，目前有兩個版本(或分支)的PHP可用：PHP4及PHP5而版本的需求列於下。
  • Moodle 1.4版或之後的版本：PHP4 (4.1.0版或之後)或PHP5 (5.1.0版或之後)可以支援。
  • Moodle 1.6版或之後的版本：PHP4 (4.3.0版或之後)或PHP5 (5.1.0版或之後)可以支援。
  • 未來Moodle 2.0版或之後將不再支援PHP4並且需要PHP5 (5.2.8版或之後)。
  • PHP設定，檢查你的php.ini設定或是.htaccess檔案(假如你使用Apache的話)，這些設定使用ON/OFF作為他們的值，你可以用1來取代ON，用0來取代OFF，如果你喜歡的話。
    • register_globals 必須是OFF
    • safe_mode需要是OFF。
    • memory_limit至少應該要16M (Moodle 1.7建議使用32M而Moodle 1.8或之後的版本建議使用40M)，大型站台可能需要超過128M的記憶體，PHP 5.2.x比以前的PHP版本需要較高的memory_limit值，64為原作頁系統也需要更多的記憶體。
    • session.save_handler需要設為FILES。
    • magic_quotes_gpc應該是ON，(到2.0時建議關掉)
    • magic_quotes_runtime需要是OFF。
    • file_uploads需要是ON。
    • session.auto_start需要是OFF。
    • session.bug_compat_warn需要是OFF。
  • PHP擴充及函式庫
    • Moodle 1.6或之後的版本建議使用mbstring擴充。
    • Moodle 1.6或之後的版本建議使用iconv擴充。
    • 要看紀錄頁產生的動態圖片需要安裝GD函式庫及FreeType 2函式庫跟擴充。(Freetype支援在PHP的5.x版時是GD擴充的一部分)
    • 假如你使用MySQL資料庫時需要mysql擴充，注意在有些Linux版本(很明顯的就是Red Hat)上這是選項安裝。
    • 假如你使用PostgesSQL資料庫時需要pgsql擴充。
    • （實驗性質的）SQLite 3資料庫支援需要pdo及pdo_sqlite擴充。
    • Moodle 1.8或之後的版本建議使用curl擴充。
    • Moodle 1.8或之後的版本建議使用tokenizer擴充。
    • Moodle網路功能（Moodle 1.8或之後的版本）需要curl及openssl擴充。
    • Moodle網路功能（Moodle 1.8或之後的版本）需要xmlrpc擴充。
    • Moodle 1.8或之後的版本建議使用ctype擴充。
    • 其他PHP擴充需要來支援其他Moodle選擇性的功能，特別是外部認證且/或註冊(例如LDAP認證的LDAP擴充及聊天伺服器的sockets擴充)。
• 可以是用的資料庫伺服器：MySQL或PostgreSQL可以完全支援並且建議使用在任何的Moodle的版本上，Microsoft SQL Server 及Oracle的支援在Moodle 1.7版時加入，MySQL是最多人的選擇因為它很受歡迎，但是也有些支持PostgreSQL的論點，特別是假如你計畫有一個大型的佈署時。
  • Moodle 1.5版，MySQL (3.23或之後的版本)或PostgreSQL (7.4或之後的版本)。
  • Moodle 1.6版，MySQL (4.1.12或之後的版本)或PostgreSQL (7.4或之後的版本)。
  • Moodle 1.7版，MySQL (4.1.12或之後的版本)、PostgreSQL (7.4或之後的版本)或Microsoft SQL Server 2005 (9版或SQL Server Express 2005)
  • Moodle 1.8或之後的版本，MySQL (4.1.12或之後的版本)、PostgreSQL (8.0或之後的版本)或Microsoft SQL Server 2005 (9版或SQL Server Express 2005)

MySQL 注意：針對Moodle 1.6或之後的版本，假如你使用拉丁語的話你只可以使用MySQL 4.1.12版。假如你使用非拉丁語的話，你需要MySQL 4.1.16或之後的版本，目前在MySQL

組態檔裡的MySQL設定"strict mode"必須是OFF (設成""或"MYSQL40")。

PostgreSQL注意：PostgreSQL 7.4被推薦使用在較早期的Moodle版本，自Moodle 1.8版之後只有PostgreSQL 8.0及以上的版本才可支援。

• 為了展示或是中小型的安裝，Moodle 2.0也含括了(實驗性質)的SQLite 3資料庫的支援，這個設定不需要資料庫伺服器，它是以資料庫檔案儲存在伺服器的一個目錄裡。

目錄

多少使用者？

除了硬體及軟體的需求外，你也需要由Moodle所能處理的使用者人數來考慮Moodle安裝的容量，有兩個地方要規劃：

瀏覽的使用者：能夠瀏覽你的Moodle站台的最大人數，這是你公司內或你的課程的數目（任一個較大的）。

並行資料庫使用者：並行資料庫使用者的最大數目(這是Moodle的活動像是測驗須要的)，這是使用者同時使用Moodle的數目，在一個教育機構，使用你的時間表/名冊來取得這個數字。

一旦你知道你的使用者數目，假如你安裝的Moodle能夠支援這個容量的話你就可以開始工作了，確切的用戶數端賴於你的硬體/軟體/網路組合，通常安裝記憶體數量是決定的因素但是一個有較快的處理器也可以幫忙降低頁面載入的時間。

對一台伺服器來說一般的經驗法則是同時在線的最多使用者約等於 RAM (GB) * 50且最多瀏覽的人數約等於同時在線的最多使用者 * 5，例如，一個有500台電腦的大學在任何時候有100個使用者大約就需要2GB的RAM在伺服器上才可以支援同時使用的人數。

• 注意假如你使用託管帳戶：詢問你的供應商並行資料庫連結數及處理器載入的限制，這樣可以大概估計你安裝的Moodle可以管理多少使用者。

• 注意： 截至2007年8月31日Moodle 1.8.2+版不建議大型安裝，特別是假如你有很多的課程數(例如20,000+)，主要的原因是關於ROLES的程式碼在資料庫查詢時仍然不能完全最佳化而且需要一些時間，假如你計畫使用1.8.x版的程式碼在大型機構，請確認你有充分的時間來作自己的測試及效能分析工具，請更新到Moodle 1.9!!

[Update|Updating from a previous version] of Moodle has been improved quite a bit from 1.8.3+ version (see this thread discussion: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=83281). Moodle 1.9 has even more improvements in all areas and is the recommended version.

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Download and copy files into place

There are two ways to get Moodle, either as a compressed package or via CVS for Administrators.

Download from compressed packages

There are two types of compressed packages at the download.moodle.org page: which offer a variety of version, operating systems and compression types.

1. The "Standard Distribution" (with Moodle only files) and
2. Several operating system "Complete Install Packages" (which contains programs to create a Moodle in a web environment). Please see Complete install packages for more information.

Most of these instructions are for the standard distribution, Download a compressed package and then unpack the archive into your file structure using either of these two commands:

tar -zxvf [filename]
unzip [filename]

Download from CVS

To use CVS, helpful instructions are available at the CVS for Administrators page. The full Moodle CVS repository is also available for browsing.

If you are using CVS, run the CVS Checkout command.

Directory created placement

After either of the above processes, you will now have with a directory called "moodle", containing a number of files and folders.

For the standard package, you can either place the whole folder in your web server documents directory, in which case the site will be located at http://yourwebserver.com/moodle, or you can copy all the contents straight into the main web server documents directory, in which case the site will be simply http://yourwebserver.com.

TIP: If you are downloading Moodle to your local computer and then uploading it to your web site, it is usually better to upload the whole archive as one file, and then do the unpacking on the server. Even web hosting interfaces like cPanel allow you to uncompress archives in the "File Manager".

Structure of moodle directory

You can safely skip this section, but here is a quick summary of the contents of the Moodle folder, to help get you oriented:

config.php - contains basic settings. This file does not come with Moodle - you will create it by executing install.php or manually.

install.php - the script you will run to create config.php

version.php - defines the current version of Moodle code

index.php - the front page of the site

admin/ - code to administrate the whole server

auth/ - plugin modules to authenticate users

blocks/ - plugin modules for the little side blocks on many pages

calendar/ - all the code for managing and displaying calendars

course/ - code to display and manage courses

doc/ - help documentation for Moodle (eg this page)

files/ - code to display and manage uploaded files

lang/ - texts in different languages, one directory per language

lib/ - libraries of core Moodle code

login/ - code to handle login and account creation

mod/ - all the main Moodle course modules are in here

pix/ - generic site graphics

theme/ - theme packs/skins to change the look of the site.

user/ - code to display and manage users

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Setting-up your system

To ensure that Moodle will install successfully, you need to check that the web server settings are correct, then create a blank database for Moodle to use and finally create a directory on your hard disk for Moodle to save your materials and other files you upload into your courses.

Check web server settings

• Firstly, make sure that your web server is set up to use index.php as a default page (perhaps in addition to index.html, default.htm and so on). In Apache, this is done using a DirectoryIndex parameter in your httpd.conf file. Mine usually looks like this:

DirectoryIndex index.php index.html index.htm

Just make sure index.php is in the list (and preferably towards the start of the list, for efficiency).

• Secondly, if you are using Apache 2, then you should turn on the AcceptPathInfo variable, which allows scripts to be passed arguments like http://server/file.php/arg1/arg2. This is essential to allow relative links between your resources, and also provides a performance boost for people using your Moodle web site. You can turn this on by adding these lines to your httpd.conf file. (NB: This setting, or any equivalent, is not required in Apache 1)

AcceptPathInfo on

Recheck PHP settings

Moodle requires a number of PHP settings to be active for it to work. These were given in the Requirements section and On most servers these will already be the default settings. However, some PHP servers (and some of the more recent PHP versions) may have things set differently, so it is useful to double-check that the settings are correct. These are defined in PHP's configuration file (usually called php.ini) or in the Apache .htaccess file:

register_globals = 0         ;(necessary)
safe_mode = 0                ;(necessary)
memory_limit = 40M           ;(varies: minimum 16M, 32M Moodle v1.7, 40M Moodle v1.8, 128M large sites)
session.save_handler = files ;(unless you are using another handler, e.g. mm)   
magic_quotes_gpc = 1         ;(preferred but not necessary, 0 will be highly recommended in 2.0)
magic_quotes_runtime = 0     ;(necessary)
file_uploads = 1
session.auto_start = 0       ;(necessary)
session.bug_compat_warn = 0

You may also want to set other, optional php.ini file settings while you are already editing it. For instance, you may want to reset the maximum upload size of file attachments, which usually defaults to 2M(egabytes). For instance, to set these to 16 Megabytes:

post_max_size = 16M
upload_max_filesize = 16M

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Using a .htaccess file for webserver and PHP settings

Use the above if you can directly edit your server's files, but if you are setting-up Moodle on a webhost, or don't have access to httpd.conf or php.ini on your server, or you have Moodle on a server with other applications that require different settings, then don't worry, you can often still override the default settings. This only works on Apache servers and only when Overrides have been allowed in the main Apache configuration. Moodle is supplied with a htaccess file which you can use, or you can create your own file manually.

• Use the default htaccess file. The easiest thing to do is just copy the sample file from moodle/lib/htaccess and edit it to suit your needs. It contains further instructions. For example, in a Unix shell:

cd moodle
cp moodle/lib/htaccess .htaccess

• Create your own file. Alternatively you can create your own file called .htaccess in Moodle's main directory that contains lines like the following.

DirectoryIndex index.php index.html index.htm
php_value memory_limit 40M (adjust to your version of Moodle)
php_flag magic_quotes_gpc 1
php_flag magic_quotes_runtime 0
php_flag file_uploads 1
php_flag session.auto_start 0
php_flag session.bug_compat_warn 0

If you have Apache version 2 installed, add these lines:

<IfDefine APACHE2>
    AcceptPathInfo on
</IfDefine>

Otherwise add this single line:

AcceptPathInfo on

Optionally, you can also do things like define the maximum size for uploaded files, etc by adding these lines:

LimitRequestBody 0
php_value upload_max_filesize 2M
php_value post_max_size 2M

The value given in these lines is 2M. You may want to change this at a later date to allow uploading of larger files.

• Some shared hosts do not allow .htaccess files. In this case, it may be necessary to place a php.ini file within each sub-directory of the site. To do this, you use your editor to create a php.ini file in the main moodle directory and later copy it to all sub-directories. The syntax for the php.ini file is different than the one used in .htaccess - you do not use the php_value and php_flag prefixes. See the example below:

upload_max_filesize = 2M
post_max_size = 2M

After creating the php.ini file with all of the statements you need, run the script http://tips-scripts.com/php_ini_copy or copy php.ini manually to all sub-directories.

• Some shared hosts use suPHP, which requires a slightly different configuration. If everything else fails, try creating the following two files and uploading to your moodle root directory

php.ini (sample):

register_globals = 0
display_errors = 0

.htaccess (sample):

suPHP_ConfigPath /home/cPanelName/public_html/moodle

Change the above path to the actual path to your moodle install.

• Note: Use a .htaccess file only as a last resort as it can have an impact on the performance of your Moodle site and cause pages to load slowly on your browser.

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Creating an empty database

You need to create an empty database (eg "moodle") in your database system along with a special user (eg "moodleuser") that has access to that database (and that database only). You could use the "root" user if you wanted to for a test server, but this is not recommended for a production system: if hackers manage to discover the password then your whole database system would be at risk, rather than just one database.

Warning: Bear in mind that, as of Moodle version 1.5.x, Moodle doesn't work with MySQL 5.x's strict mode setting (STRICT_TRANS_TABLES and/or STRICT_ALL_TABLES) -- see forum discussion. So if you are using MySQL 5.x, edit MySQL's configuration file (called "my.ini" in Windows and "my.cnf" on Unix/Linux) and comment out that option or set it to sql-mode=. You have to restart MySQL after changing this setting.

If you do not have access to your server, use PHPMyAdmin (or another MySQL client) and enter the command SET @@global.sql_mode=; (be sure to use single quotes, and don't forget the semicolon).

Using a hosted server If you are using a webhost, they will probably have a control panel web interface for you to create your database. The cPanel system is one of the most popular of these. To create a database using cPanel: Click on the MySQL Databases icon. Type moodle in the New Database field and click Create Database. Type a username and password (not one you use elsewhere) in the respective fields and click Create User. Note that the username and database names may be prefixed by your cPanel account name and an underscore, and truncated to 16 characters. When entering this information into the Moodle installer - use the full names. Now use the Add Users to Databases button and give this new user account ALL rights to the new database. Continue with Creating the data directory

Using a SQLite database SQLite is a software library that implements a self-contained, serverless, zero-configuration, transactional SQL database engine. Moodle 2.0 offers experimental support for SQLite3 database installations. In this case, no database setup is required. The database file will be created by the installation script. By default, the database file will be store in Moodle's data directory (see Creating the data directory). During install, the web server must have write access on the directory where the database file will be stored. After installation, the web server must have read-write access to the database file. Continue with Creating the data directory

Using the command line

If you have access to Unix or Windows command lines then you can do the same sort of thing by typing commands. You should do this, if you want to use a MySQL database, using the MySQL Client program as follows (commands which you type-in are shown in bold):

- Start the MySQL Client program:

#mysql -u root -p
Enter password:
Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 2 to server version: 5.0.22-log

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the buffer.

mysql>

- The prompt changes to "mysql>" to indicate that you are now working in the MySQL Client program. When working in MySQL, all commands which you type-in must end in a semi-colon. (If you hit the Enter key without the final semi-colon, you'll get the line continuation symbol '->'; this is your second chance to type the semi-colon and hit Enter.)

- Begin by checking for any existing databases called "moodle" - if there are any you should change the name in all the commands which follow:

mysql> SHOW DATABASES;
+-------------------------+
| Database                |
+-------------------------+
| information_schema      |
| mysql                   |
| test                    |
+-------------------------+
3 rows in set (0.03 sec)

- Create a database to store the Moodle tables. We'll call this "moodle", as there are none with that name already in the above list, but change it if you need to.

mysql> CREATE DATABASE moodle;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)

- Change the default character set and collation of the "moodle" database to UTF8. Leave this out if you are installing Moodle 1.5 or earlier):

mysql> ALTER DATABASE moodle DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)

- Create a username and password to access the database "moodle" and grant database access permissions. We'll call the user "moodleuser" and set the password as "yourpassword". It's a good idea to change these for your installation however most people keep the username as "moodleuser". Remember the username and password you have set, as you'll need it in the configuration screens later. This is a long command so has been split over several lines by pressing the Return key.

mysql> GRANT SELECT,INSERT,UPDATE,DELETE,CREATE,CREATE TEMPORARY TABLES,
    -> DROP,INDEX,ALTER ON moodle.*
    -> TO moodleuser@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'yourpassword';
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.01 sec)

Security Warnings: Never leave the password as the one shown here. Make sure you have a strong password (a mixture of letters and numbers, upper and lower case). Avoid granting "ALL" permissions on the database.

Note: For MySQL 4.0.1 or earlier, you don't need the CREATE TEMPORARY TABLES permission.

- Exit the MySQL Client program:

mysql> QUIT
Bye
#

- Reload the grant tables using the mysqladmin program:

#mysqladmin -u root -p reload
Enter password:
#

And some example command lines for those who wish to use a PostgreSQL database:

  # su - postgres
  > psql -c "create user moodleuser createdb;" template1
  > psql -c "alter user moodleuser with encrypted password 'yourpassword';" template1
  > psql -c "create database moodle with encoding 'unicode';" -U moodleuser template1
  > psql -c "alter user moodleuser nocreatedb;" template1
  > su - root
  # /etc/init.d/postgresql reload

If the Postgres create database command above (>psql -c "create database moodle...") gives an error message you may want to try:

psql -c "create database moodle with template=template1 encoding = 'unicode' owner =  moodleuser 
     location = '/var/mydata';"

If the create database command asks you for a password, run the line containing 'encrypted password' first before proceeding.

See also:

• Step-by-step instructions on installation for Ubuntu(Debian)

Table of Contents

Creating the data directory

Moodle will also need some space on your server's hard disk to store uploaded files, such as course documents and user pictures. The Moodle installer tries hard to create the moodledata directory for you but if it fails then you will have to create a directory for this purpose manually.

Security warning: For security purposes, it is CRITICAL that this directory is NOT accessible directly via the web. The easiest way to do this is to simply locate it OUTSIDE the web site root directory (it is the folder that the main part of your URL -that is, the part up to the first single / - points to; for example, in http://your.domain.com/moodle/admin/cron.php, it is http://your.domain.com/).

But if you must have it in the web directory (and you are using Apache AND the web server configuration allows .htaccess files to restrict access to directories) then protect it by creating a file in the data directory called .htaccess, containing these lines:

order deny,allow
deny from all

If you are using IIS, you need to edit the properties of the data directory (from the Internet Information Services Manager console) and deny access to that folder to everybody from the web.

If you don't protect the data directory from direct web access, anybody will be able to impersonate any user of your Moodle site (including the admin user!!!), and all of your course materials will be available to the web at large.

Ownership & Permissions: To make sure that Moodle can save uploaded files in this directory, check that the web server software has permission to read, write and execute in this directory. On Unix machines, this means setting the owner of the directory to be something like "nobody" or "apache", and then giving that user read, write and execute permissions. As an example, to change the owner to "nobody" you could use:

chown -R nobody:apache moodledata

To change the permissions so that the owner has read,write and execute permissions, use something like this:

chmod -R 0770 moodledata

Note: If you are receiving permission denied messages, try chmod -R 0770 moodledata and then adjust the settings so that they are more secure. A more secure setting is chmod -R 0750 moodledata. According to the comments in config-dist.php, "On hosting systems you might need to make sure that your group has no permissions at all while others have full permissions." To do this you could use chmod -R 707 moodledata. See also the security page.

Remember that by default moodle will issue a warning about moodle data directories created inside the web directory, but otherwise this directory can be located where you wish. You can later move or change the location of this directory, but if you do, be sure to edit the setting in the config.php file that sets this; e.g. if moodledata is under a directory called data, then it would look like this:

$CFG->dataroot  = '/data/moodledata';

CPanel and webhosts On cPanel systems you can use the "File Manager" to find the folder, click on it, then choose "Change Permissions". On many shared hosting servers, you will probably need to restrict all file access to your "group" (to prevent other webhost customers from looking at or changing your files), but provide full read/write access to everyone else (which will allow the web server to access your files). Speak to your server administrator if you are having trouble setting this up securely. In particular it will not be possible to create a usable data directory on sites that use a PHP feature known as "Safe Mode".

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Run the installer script to create config.php

To run the installer script (install.php), just try to access your Moodle main URL using a web browser, or access http://yourserver/install.php directly.

(The Installer will try to set a session cookie. If you get a popup warning in your browser make sure you accept that cookie!)

Moodle will detect that configuration is necessary and will lead you through some screens to help you create a new configuration file called config.php. At the end of the process Moodle will try and write the file into the right location, otherwise you can press a button to download it from the installer and then upload config.php into the main Moodle directory on the server.

Along the way the installer will test your server environment and give you suggestions about how to fix any problems. For most common issues these suggestions should be sufficient, but if you get stuck, check in the Installation Forum for more help.

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Go to the admin page to continue configuration

Once the basic config.php has been correctly created in the previous step, trying to access the front page of your site will take you to the "admin" page for the rest of the configuration.

The first time you access this admin page, you will be presented with a GPL "shrink wrap" agreement with which you must agree before you can continue with the setup.

Now Moodle will start setting up your database and creating tables to store data. Firstly, the main database tables are created. You should see a number of SQL statements followed by status messages that look like this:

CREATE TABLE course (
   id int(10) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,
   category int(10) unsigned NOT NULL default '0',
   password varchar(50) NOT NULL default '',
   fullname varchar(254) NOT NULL default '',
   shortname varchar(15) NOT NULL default '',
   summary text NOT NULL,
   format tinyint(4) NOT NULL default '1',
   teacher varchar(100) NOT NULL default 'Teacher',
   startdate int(10) unsigned NOT NULL default '0',
   enddate int(10) unsigned NOT NULL default '0',
   timemodified int(10) unsigned NOT NULL default '0',
   PRIMARY KEY (id)
) TYPE=MyISAM;

SUCCESS

...and so on, followed by: Main databases set up successfully.

If you don't see these, then there must have been some problem with the database or the configuration settings you defined in config.php. Check that PHP isn't in a restricted "Safe Mode" (commercial web hosts sometimes have safe mode turned on). You can check PHP variables by creating a little file containing <?php phpinfo() ?> and looking at it through a browser. Check all these and try this page again.

Scroll down the very bottom of the page and press the "Continue" link.

You should now see a form where you can define more configuration variables for your installation, such as the default language, SMTP hosts and so on. Don't worry too much about getting everything right just now - you can always come back and edit these later on using the admin interface. The defaults are designed to be useful and secure for most sites. Scroll down to the bottom and click "Save changes".

If (and only if) you find yourself getting stuck on this page, unable to continue, then your server probably has what I call the "buggy referrer" problem. This is easy to fix: just turn off the "secureforms" setting, then try to continue again.

Next you will see more pages that print lots of status messages as they set up all the tables required by the various Moodle module. As before, they should all be green.

Scroll down the very bottom of the page and press the "Continue" link.

The next page is a form where you can define parameters for your Moodle site and the front page, such as the name, format, description and so on. Fill this out (you can always come back and change these later) and then press "Save changes".

Finally, you will then be asked to create a top-level administration user for future access to the admin pages. Fill out the details with your own name, email etc and then click "Save changes". Not all the fields are required, but if you miss any important fields you'll be re-prompted for them.

Make sure you remember the username and password you chose for the administration user account, as they will be necessary to access the administration page in future.

(If for any reason your install is interrupted, or there is a system error of some kind that prevents you from logging in using the admin account, you can usually log in using the default username of "admin", with password "admin".)

Once successful, you will be returned to the home page of your new site! Note the administration links that appear down the left hand side of the page (these items also appear on a separate Admin page) - these items are only visible to you because you are logged in as the admin user. All your further administration of Moodle can now be done using this menu, such as:

• creating and deleting courses
• creating and editing user accounts
• administering teacher accounts
• changing site-wide settings like themes etc

But you are not done installing yet! There is one very important thing still to do (see the next section on cron).

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Installing Moodle Using Command Line

Installing Moodle Using command line is just as easy as installing Moodle using web browser.

• First Go to the moodle root directory and then to admin directory inside the moodle root.

$cd /var/www/html/moodle/admin

• Then simply use the following syntax to run the moodle command line installer (this is a long command which has been split over 3 lines, so type as one line)

$php cliupgrade.php --lang=en --webaddr=http://www.example.com --moodledir=/var/www/html/moodle 
                    --datadir=/var/moodledata --dbtype=mysql --dbhost=localhost --dbname=moodle 
                    --dbuser=root --prefix=mdl --verbose=1 --interactivelevel=2 

More information about the options can be found using $php cliupgrad.php --help

Then you will see the following list of available options

--lang		 		Valid installed language for installation. Default is English(en)
--webaddr			Web address for the Moodle site
--moodledir			Location of the moodle web folder
--datadir			Location of the moodle data folder (should not be web visible)
--dbtype			Database type. Default it mysql
--dbhost			Database host. Default localhost
--dbname			Database name. Default is moodle
--dbuser			Database user. Default is blank
--dbpass			Database password. Default is blank
--prefix			        Table prefix for above database tables. Default is mdl
--verbose			0 No output, 1 Summarized output(Default), 2 Detailed output
--interactivelevel	        0 Non interactive, 1 Semi interactive(Default), 2 Interactive
--help				print out this help

When you choose non interactive mode without any options all the default values are assumed.

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Set up cron

Moodle's background tasks (e.g. sending out forum emails and performing course backups) are performed by a script which you can set to execute at specific times of the day. This is known as a cron script. Please refer to the Cron instructions.

Set up backups

Please refer to the backup instructions.

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Create a new course

Now that Moodle is running properly, you can try creating a new course to play with.

Select "Create a new course" from the Admin page (or the admin links on the home page).

Fill out the form, paying special attention to the course format. You don't have to worry about the details too much at this stage, as everything can be changed later by the teacher. Note that the yellow help icons are everywhere to provide contextual help on any aspect.

Press "Save changes", and you will be taken to a new form where you can assign teachers to the course. You can only add existing user accounts from this form - if you want to create a new teacher account then either ask the teacher to create one for themselves (see the login page), or create one for them using the "Add a new user" on the Admin page.

Once done, the course is ready to customize, and is accessible via the "Courses" link on the home page.

See also

• Installation FAQ
• Complete install packages might be an easier first time installs on some systems
• Help forum: Installation problems
• Installing Apache, MySQL and PHP - Open source programs that can run Moodle on the web or on a desktop
• Upgrading Moodle
• Using Moodle Selecting a web host for Moodle forum discussion
• Masquerading - Running Moodle behind a masquerading/NAT firewall
• Tutorial on choosing a host and setting up moodle via the old cpanel