Procedure for Updating Moodle

This is a guide on how we update moodle in newer version

Step 1

Stop RSYNC for moodledata. RSYNC must be stopped so that no more data go into the moodledata directory.

Step 2 

Mysql dump courses.unic.ac.cy, globaltraining and Unicexams  (This method is now replaced by taking a snapshot of the database from AWS console. step4)

Step 3

With AWS Backup a backup was taken for EFS (~573gb).

Step 4

Backup RDS by taking a snapshot (RDS includes courses,globaltraining,unicexams database)

Step 5 

Change the EC2 instances type from R4 Large to R5 Large (latest).

Step 6

Update PHP7.0 to PHP7.3. New php packages and libraries were installed to support moodle version 3.7+ 

PHP-FPM must set to autostart 

chkconfig php-fpm on 

Check if php-fpm is set to autostart options -2 -3 -4 -5 must have value 'on'

chkconfig --list php-fpm

Make Sure

that in /etc/php-fpm-7.3.d/www.conf  "listen" is set to "127.0.0.1:9000"

that in /etc/php-7.3.d/10-opcache.ini "opcache.enable=1"  (enable opcache)

that in moodle config  $CFG->localcachedir = "/home/localcaches/courses.unic.ac.cy";  is not commented thus it will make the website faster

Step 7

Create new AMI's with the configurations made in Step 5 and Step 6

Step 8

A new version of vle-cluster-slave-server was created  in Launch Templates under Instances category. This was later added into the Auto scaling Groups (Latest is by default assigned in Auto Scaling Groups so that it takes the configuration from Launch Template automatically).

Step 9

Check if everything is properly working 

Related articles