MoodleNet
What is MoodleNet?
MoodleNet is a flexible Open Education Technology platform for curating collections of the best known Open Educational (and other) Resources. You'll find more general information in the MoodleNet user documentation.
If you are looking to get started as a MoodleNet developer, we have some courses on Moodle Academy. Both are a bit old but will be updated soon.
Checkout issues and releases on https://github.com/moodle/moodlenet
Current status
We have just released MoodleNet 4.0.0. You can follow the releases on Moodle's Jira tracker at MDLNET.
Roadmap
See our work on new features in the tracker.
Quick start guide
System Requirements
MoodleNet currently runs on
MoodleNet supports these specific versions only, previous version are not supported
The system also needs a reachable instance of ArangoDB v3.10 for data storage
[Note]: prior to version 4.2.1, MoodleNet supported nodejs@v16 and npm@v8
Deploy an ArangoDB instance
MoodleNet uses ArangoDB as main database
You can choose how and where to deploy your ArangoDB, as long as it can be reached by MoodleNet process
An easy way to install run ArangDB locally as a service is by using Docker[1] e.g. :
docker run -d --restart unless-stopped -e ARANGO_NO_AUTH=1 -p 8529:8529 --name=mn-3-db arangodb:3.10
Possibly tweaking some options as you like, e.g. mounting a volume|directory for data or setting a password
Install MoodleNet
Install Moodlenet by simply issuing the following npm command
npm create @moodlenet@latest path/to/installation/folder
That will install all MoodleNet core packages in the chosen folder
it will also create a default configuration file (default.config.json) and a default cryptographic key-pair for the system (default.crypto.privateKey , default.crypto.publicKey)
Start MoodleNet process
To start MoodleNet issue the following command from within the installation directory
npm start
open your browser on http://localhost:8080
Notice: on the first run the system will have to compile the webapp, so you'll get a 404 until ready. It should take a few minutes.
MoodleNet configuration file
MoodleNet configuration file (default.config.json) holds all static system configs.
Here's how the default config looks like after install:
{
"pkgs": {
"@moodlenet/core": {
"baseFsFolder": "/path/to/installation/dir/fs",
"instanceDomain": "http://localhost:8080",
"npmRegistry": "https://registry.npmjs.org",
"mainLogger": {
"consoleLevel": "info",
"file": {
"path": "./log/moodlenet.%DATE%.log",
"level": "info"
}
}
},
"@moodlenet/crypto": {
"keys": {
"alg": "RS256",
"type": "PKCS8",
"private": "/path/to/installation/dir/default.crypto.privateKey",
"public": "/path/to/installation/dir/default.crypto.publicKey"
}
},
"@moodlenet/arangodb": {
"connectionCfg": {
"url": "http://localhost:8529"
}
},
"@moodlenet/http-server": {
"port": 8080,
"defaultRpcUploadMaxSize": "5MB"
},
"@moodlenet/ed-resource": {
"resourceUploadMaxSize": "1.2GB"
},
"@moodlenet/simple-email-auth": {
"newUserNotPublisher": false
},
"@moodlenet/email-service": {
"nodemailerTransport": {
"jsonTransport": true
}
},
"@moodlenet/system-entities": {
"rootPassword": "eqhb30x9iq5"
},
"@moodlenet/react-app": {
"defaultImageUploadMaxSize": "1MB"
}
}
Here are some relevant configs you may want to check and tweak:
- @moodlenet/arangodb.connectionCfg.url : the default config assumes you installed ArangoDB without password with standard port on the same host
- @moodlenet/core.baseFsFolder : path (better absolute path instead of relative to MoodleNet process cwd) to the system root folder for system filesystem persistency, if you want to change the system-filesystem-root after the system already run, move or clone the existing folder somewhere else and set this config properly to point to the new path
- @moodlenet/core.instanceDomain : the public domain of your moodlenet instance (e.g. https://moodlenet.example.com) - the default one (http://localhost:8080) is ok for testing and dev
- @moodlenet/email-service.nodemailerTransport : the nodemailer transport configuration for the system email service. It can be a simple smtp url string, or a nodemailer standard config object. Notice: with the default configuration { "jsonTransport": true } the system won't send any email, it will simply log them)
- @moodlenet/system-entities.rootPassword : a static root password for edge cases - you'll use it to give the first admin permission to a user (see below) - this property is optional, if not set the root user is disabled
- @moodlenet/http-server.port : the HTTP server port to listen
Moodlenet's HTTP service doesn't support HTTPS.
It's always a good practice to back Moodlenet with a HTTP reverse proxy (e.g. nginx, Apache) and it is a must if you want to publish over HTTPS, configuring TLS on it.
Default authentication system
Moodlenet comes with a simple email+password authentication system (pkg @moodlenet/simple-email-auth) that lets users signup and login with a verified email
Users can sign up with their email, receive in their inbox a confirmation link to click and create their user-account
Assign admin privileges to your user
As you deploy a new instance, no user is present in the system.
Signup with your email and create your user.
Test login, then logout and browse to the hidden page http://localhost:8080/login/root, here you can type in the rootPassword (specified in config file) to login as root.
Open the avatar menu on top right header, and click admin link
Click on Users section on the left, and see your user listed there. Activate the admin icon to give yourself admin privileges
Now you can log out and login back with your email, see you gained the admin link in your avatar menu
Admins can directly use that admin page feature anytime to assign and remove admin privileges to other users
Update the system
You can easily upgrade MoodleNet keeping system packages always up-to-date with the minor and patch releases by issuing the command
npm update
from within the installation directory, the same where you start the system
Since MoodleNet is npm-package based, it leverages all npm features for upgrades and new packages installation
Note:
npm update does not upgrade packages for breaking-change versions (major versions, or minor versions for 0.x.y versions, as from node-semver specs)
In case you need to upgrade MoodleNet system packages to newer major versions you may want to either edit manually the main package.json
Or, better, use the utility npm-check-updates:
# for a dry run: npx npm-check-updates # to update all packages writing newest version refs in package.json: npx npm-check-updates -u npm update
Migrate from V2
If you have a v2 running and want to migrate it to v3 , you can use the @moodlenet/v2-migrate-v3
The v3 system must have access to Moodlenet-V2 persistencies:
- the running arangoDB instance
- MN2 filesystem folder as configured in V2 env variable STATICASSETS_FS_ROOT_FOLDER
V2 persistencies will be used in read-only
Note: in case you use the docker setup as proposed above and have it all running at one server, you need to have two Arango DB instances running at the same time. So just forward a different port (here we use localhost:8530 to access the new Arango db instance):
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAME xxxxxx arangodb "/entrypoint.sh aran…" 28 hours ago Up 28 hours 127.0.0.1:8530->8529/tcp arangodb-new yyyyyy arangodb "/entrypoint.sh aran…" 4 days ago Up 28 hours 127.0.0.1:8529->8529/tcp mn-arangodb
Edit the default.config.json adding a @moodlenet/v2-migrate-v3 section beside the others, it should look like that:
"@moodlenet/v2-migrate-v3": {
"v2DbConnectionCfg": {
"url": "http://your-mn-v2-arangodb-host:8529"
},
"v2AssetFolder": "/path/to/v2/asset/folder"
}
Note that you may also have to adjust the database configuration above for the v3 instance.
After Moodlenet v3 is installed (as above but choosing the early 3.0 version npm create @moodlenet@3.0 – caution: @3.0.0 wouldn't work!), issue the following command from the installation folder:
npm install @moodlenet/v2-migrate-v3@0.5.1
Then just (re)start your v3 instance by running "npm start", the migration will be done, services will be restarted and you can log in.
After migration completed this package can be safely uninstalled.
MoodleNet architecture
MoodleNet is a full stack TypeScript/JavaScript system using:
MoodleNet development environment
- NodeJs ^16 https://nodejs.org/
- ArangoDB ^3 (we suggest using Docker)
- We recommend the open source IDE Visual Studio Code https://code.visualstudio.com/
Setup development environment
From the command line interface (CLI):
Ensure ArangoDB is running on localhost. You may run it in a Docker container issuing a command as below:
docker run -e ARANGO_NO_AUTH=1 -p 8529:8529 --name=mn3-dev arangodb:3.10
Clone the repository, you may wish to fork it, but that's not required:
git clone https://gitlab.com/moodlenet/moodlenet.git
Change to the project's folder:
cd moodlenet
Install and initialise the project:
npm install
Copy assets
npx lerna run copy-assets
Install a development server:
npm run dev-install-backend my-dev # <- my-dev: an arbitrary dev-installation name
In the example we chose my-dev as installation name, the tool will then setup a dev installation in ./.dev-machines/my-dev
You can create as many dev installations as you wish.
Run development backend:
npm run dev-start-backend my-dev # <- my-dev : the name you chose when installed
The first run of the system may take some time to install.
The default configuration for dev includes the config @moodlenet/react-app.noWebappServer: true that prevents the server to expensively build and serve the webapp,
so you'll get all backend services served on http://localhost:8080, except for the webapp.
Instead, you'll want to run a webpack+HMR serving the webapp issuing
npm run dev-start-webapp my-dev # <- my-dev: the installation server to point to
Once all started, browse http://localhost:3000, any edits to webapp related code will be Hot-Module-Replaced
Mono-Repository management with Lerna.js
MoodleNet project takes leverages lerna.js to manage multi-package mono-repository .
Please refer to Lerna documentation to understand how it manages mono-repo and project-packages dependency linking in the development environment.
Questions? Please take a look in the MoodleNet Community and Tracker for answers or to ask for help.
