Installing Moodle on Ubuntu Using AWS EC2 Instance with SSL on example.com

Prerequisites

An AWS account with EC2 Free Tier
Basic knowledge of Linux command line
A registered domain name (example.com)
A Cloudflare account for SSL

Instructions

Log in to AWS Management Console
- Navigate to the EC2 Dashboard and click "Launch Instance."
- Select "Ubuntu Server 20.04 LTS" as the AMI.
- Choose an instance type (t2.micro for Free Tier).
- Configure instance details (1 instance, Auto-assign Public IP).
- Add storage (default 8 GB).
- Configure security groups (allow SSH, HTTP, and HTTPS traffic).
- Create a new key pair (name it moodleserver) and download the key pair file (<your_keypair_file.pem>).
- Review and launch the instance.
Note the public IP address of your EC2 instance.
Point your domain to the EC2 instance
- Log in to your domain registrar's dashboard.
- Update the DNS settings to point to the public IP address of your EC2 instance.
- Ensure you have an A record for example.com and www.example.com pointing to your EC2 instance's public IP address.

Configuring SSH Access

Windows:

Set file permissions for <your_keypair_file.pem> using icacls in PowerShell:

icacls <your_keypair_file.pem> /inheritance:r
icacls <your_keypair_file.pem> /grant:r <YourWindowsUsername>:F
icacls <your_keypair_file.pem> /remove "BUILTIN\Users"
icacls <your_keypair_file.pem>

eg.

icacls "Moodle-OpenSSH-key.pem" /inheritance:r && icacls "Moodle-OpenSSH-key.pem" /grant:r <YourWindowsUsername>:F && icacls "Moodle-OpenSSH-key.pem" /remove "BUILTIN\Users" && icacls "Moodle-OpenSSH-key.pem"

Connect to the EC2 instance using PowerShell:

ssh -i "<your_keypair_file.pem>" ubuntu@<EC2_Instance_Public_IP>

Mac:

Set file permissions for <your_keypair_file.pem>:
```
chmod 400 <your_keypair_file.pem>
```

Connect to the EC2 instance using Terminal:

ssh -i "<your_keypair_file.pem>" ubuntu@<EC2_Instance_Public_IP>

Updating the System
```
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade -y
```

Installing Required Packages

sudo apt install -y mysql-client mysql-server apache2 php php-mysql php-mbstring php-xml php-curl php-zip php-gd php-intl php-soap

Downloading and Setting Up Moodle

Search for the latest Moodle tgz file, get the direct link, then:

cd /var/www/html
sudo wget https://download.moodle.org/download.php/direct/stable404/moodle-latest-404.tgz
sudo tar -xf moodle-latest-404.tgz

Setting Up Moodle Data Directory

mkdir /var/www/moodledata
sudo chown www-data /var/www/moodledata

Creating the Moodle Database

sudo mysql -u root -p

if you did not set a password, just press enter.

CREATE DATABASE moodle DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;
CREATE USER 'moodleuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'yourpassword';
GRANT SELECT,INSERT,UPDATE,DELETE,CREATE,CREATE TEMPORARY TABLES,DROP,INDEX,ALTER ON moodle.* TO 'moodleuser'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
exit

Starting Moodle Installation
- Open a web browser and navigate to the EC2 instance's public IP address:
```
http://<EC2_Instance_Public_IP>
```
- Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the Moodle installation.

Configuring Apache for Moodle

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/example.com.conf

Add the virtual host configuration:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName example.com
    ServerAlias www.example.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/html
    <Directory /var/www/html>
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>
    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Enable the new site and restart Apache:

sudo a2ensite example.com.conf
sudo a2dissite 000-default.conf
sudo apache2ctl configtest
sudo systemctl reload apache2

Setting Up SSL with Certbot

sudo certbot --apache -d example.com -d www.example.com

Configuring Moodle for HTTPS

sudo nano /var/www/html/config.php

Update the wwwroot variable:
```
$CFG->wwwroot = 'https://example.com';
```

Setting Up Cron Job for Moodle

sudo crontab -e

Add the following lines:

#* * * * * /usr/bin/php /var/www/html/moodle/admin/cli/cron.php >/dev/null
#*/15 * * * * /usr/bin/php /var/www/html/moodle/admin/cli/cron.php >/dev/null 2>&1
*/15 * * * * /usr/bin/php /var/www/html/moodle/admin/cli/cron.php >> /var/log/moodle_cron.log 2>&1

Clear Moodle Caches

sudo -u www-data php /var/www/html/admin/cli/purge_caches.php

Set Up Auto-Renewal for SSL

sudo crontab -e

Add this line:

0 12 * * * /usr/bin/certbot renew --quiet

hosamn/Installing Moodle on AWS EC2 Ubuntu Instance.md