Installing Moodle 

Installation 

Moodle is primarily developed in Linux using Apache, MySQL and PHP (also sometimes 

known as the LAMP platform), but is also regularly tested with PostgreSQL and on Windows 

XP, Mac OS X and Netware 6 operating systems. The requirements for Moodle are as follows: 

     Web server software. Most people use Apache, but Moodle should work fine under any 

web server that supports PHP, such as IIS on Windows platforms.  

     PHP scripting language (version 4.1.0 or later). PHP 5 is supported as of Moodle 1.4.  

     A working database server: MySQL or PostgreSQL are completely supported and           

recommended for use with Moodle.  

Most web hosts support all of this by default. If you are signed up with one of the few web 

hosts that does not support these features ask them why, and consider taking your business             

elsewhere.  

If you want to run Moodle on your own computer and all this looks a bit daunting, consider 

downloading either the EasyPHP or Xampp Windows distro at http://goohio.com/moodle/. 

These all in one installations make no registry changes on your computer so the easily 

uninstall by deleting the directory. Both distributions include Apache, MySQL, PHP and 

Moodle.   

The latest Moodle release is available for download  at  http://moodle.org.  Here  is  a  quick           

summary of the contents of the Moodle folder, after being unzipped, to help get you oriented: 

config.php   contains basic settings. This file does not come with Moodle   you will create it.   

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  

Step 1: Create a Database 

You need to create an empty database (e.g. "moodle") in your database system along 

with a special user (e.g. "moodleuser") that has access to that database (and that data 

base 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 you are using a web host, 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 in Cpanel: 

1.  Click on the "MySQL Databases" icon.  

2.  Type "moodle" in the database field and click "Add Database".  

3. Type a username and password (not one you use elsewhere) in the respective 

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http://moodle.org