bitnami-containers/bitnami/moodle/README.md

Bitnami LMS powered by Moodle™ LMS

What is Bitnami LMS powered by Moodle™ LMS?

Moodle™ LMS is an open source online Learning Management System widely used at universities, schools, and corporations. It is modular and highly adaptable to any type of online learning.

Overview of Bitnami LMS powered by Moodle™ LMS Disclaimer: The respective trademarks mentioned in the offering are owned by the respective companies. We do not provide commercial license of any of these products. This listing has an open source license. Moodle(TM) LMS is run and maintained by Moodle HQ, that is a completely and separate project from Bitnami.

TL;DR

docker run --name moodle bitnami/moodle:latest

Warning: This quick setup is only intended for development environments. You are encouraged to change the insecure default credentials and check out the available configuration options in the Environment Variables section for a more secure deployment.

⚠️ Important Notice: Upcoming changes to the Bitnami Catalog

Beginning August 28th, 2025, Bitnami will evolve its public catalog to offer a curated set of hardened, security-focused images under the new Bitnami Secure Images initiative. As part of this transition:

• Granting community users access for the first time to security-optimized versions of popular container images.
• Bitnami will begin deprecating support for non-hardened, Debian-based software images in its free tier and will gradually remove non-latest tags from the public catalog. As a result, community users will have access to a reduced number of hardened images. These images are published only under the “latest” tag and are intended for development purposes
• Starting August 28th, over two weeks, all existing container images, including older or versioned tags (e.g., 2.50.0, 10.6), will be migrated from the public catalog (docker.io/bitnami) to the “Bitnami Legacy” repository (docker.io/bitnamilegacy), where they will no longer receive updates.
• For production workloads and long-term support, users are encouraged to adopt Bitnami Secure Images, which include hardened containers, smaller attack surfaces, CVE transparency (via VEX/KEV), SBOMs, and enterprise support.

These changes aim to improve the security posture of all Bitnami users by promoting best practices for software supply chain integrity and up-to-date deployments. For more details, visit the Bitnami Secure Images announcement.

Why use Bitnami Secure Images?

• Bitnami Secure Images and Helm charts are built to make open source more secure and enterprise ready.
• Triage security vulnerabilities faster, with transparency into CVE risks using industry standard Vulnerability Exploitability Exchange (VEX), KEV, and EPSS scores.
• Our hardened images use a minimal OS (Photon Linux), which reduces the attack surface while maintaining extensibility through the use of an industry standard package format.
• Stay more secure and compliant with continuously built images updated within hours of upstream patches.
• Bitnami containers, virtual machines and cloud images use the same components and configuration approach - making it easy to switch between formats based on your project needs.
• Hardened images come with attestation signatures (Notation), SBOMs, virus scan reports and other metadata produced in an SLSA-3 compliant software factory.

Only a subset of BSI applications are available for free. Looking to access the entire catalog of applications as well as enterprise support? Try the commercial edition of Bitnami Secure Images today.

How to deploy Moodle™ in Kubernetes?

Deploying Bitnami applications as Helm Charts is the easiest way to get started with our applications on Kubernetes. Read more about the installation in the Bitnami Chart for Moodle™ GitHub repository.

Supported tags and respective Dockerfile links

Learn more about the Bitnami tagging policy and the difference between rolling tags and immutable tags in our documentation page.

You can see the equivalence between the different tags by taking a look at the tags-info.yaml file present in the branch folder, i.e bitnami/ASSET/BRANCH/DISTRO/tags-info.yaml.

Subscribe to project updates by watching the bitnami/containers GitHub repo.

Get this image

The recommended way to get the Bitnami Docker Image for Moodle™ is to pull the prebuilt image from the Docker Hub Registry.

docker pull bitnami/moodle:latest

To use a specific version, you can pull a versioned tag. You can view the list of available versions in the Docker Hub Registry.

docker pull bitnami/moodle:[TAG]

If you wish, you can also build the image yourself by cloning the repository, changing to the directory containing the Dockerfile and executing the docker build command. Remember to replace the APP, VERSION and OPERATING-SYSTEM path placeholders in the example command below with the correct values.

git clone https://github.com/bitnami/containers.git
cd bitnami/APP/VERSION/OPERATING-SYSTEM
docker build -t bitnami/APP:latest .

How to use this image

Moodle™ requires access to a MySQL or MariaDB database to store information. We'll use the Bitnami Docker Image for MariaDB for the database requirements.

Using the Docker Command Line

Step 1: Create a network

docker network create moodle-network

Step 2: Create a volume for MariaDB persistence and create a MariaDB container

$ docker volume create --name mariadb_data
docker run -d --name mariadb \
  --env ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes \
  --env MARIADB_USER=bn_moodle \
  --env MARIADB_PASSWORD=bitnami \
  --env MARIADB_DATABASE=bitnami_moodle \
  --network moodle-network \
  --volume mariadb_data:/bitnami/mariadb \
  bitnami/mariadb:latest

Step 3: Create volumes for Moodle™ persistence and launch the container

$ docker volume create --name moodle_data
docker run -d --name moodle \
  -p 8080:8080 -p 8443:8443 \
  --env ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes \
  --env MOODLE_DATABASE_USER=bn_moodle \
  --env MOODLE_DATABASE_PASSWORD=bitnami \
  --env MOODLE_DATABASE_NAME=bitnami_moodle \
  --network moodle-network \
  --volume moodle_data:/bitnami/moodle \
  --volume moodledata_data:/bitnami/moodledata \
  bitnami/moodle:latest

Access your application at http://your-ip/

Run the application using Docker Compose

curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bitnami/containers/main/bitnami/moodle/docker-compose.yml > docker-compose.yml
docker-compose up -d

Please be aware this file has not undergone internal testing. Consequently, we advise its use exclusively for development or testing purposes. For production-ready deployments, we highly recommend utilizing its associated Bitnami Helm chart.

If you detect any issue in the docker-compose.yaml file, feel free to report it or contribute with a fix by following our Contributing Guidelines.

Persisting your application

If you remove the container all your data will be lost, and the next time you run the image the database will be reinitialized. To avoid this loss of data, you should mount a volume that will persist even after the container is removed.

For persistence you should mount a directory at the /bitnami/moodle path and another at /bitnami/moodledata. If the mounted directory is empty, it will be initialized on the first run. Additionally you should mount a volume for persistence of the MariaDB data.

The above examples define the Docker volumes named mariadb_data, moodle_data and moodledata_data. The Moodle™ application state will persist as long as volumes are not removed.

To avoid inadvertent removal of volumes, you can mount host directories as data volumes. Alternatively you can make use of volume plugins to host the volume data.

Mount host directories as data volumes with Docker Compose

This requires a minor change to the docker-compose.yml file present in this repository:

   mariadb:
     ...
     volumes:
-      - mariadb_data:/bitnami/mariadb
+      - /path/to/mariadb-persistence:/bitnami/mariadb
   ...
   moodle:
     ...
     volumes:
-      - moodle_data:/bitnami/moodle
+      - /path/to/moodle-persistence:/bitnami/moodle
-      - moodledata_data:/bitnami/moodledata
+      - /path/to/moodledata-persistence:/bitnami/moodle
   ...
-volumes:
-  mariadb_data:
-    driver: local
-  moodle_data:
-    driver: local

Mount host directories as data volumes using the Docker command line

Step 1: Create a network (if it does not exist)

docker network create moodle-network

Step 2. Create a MariaDB container with host volume

docker run -d --name mariadb \
  --env ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes \
  --env MARIADB_USER=bn_moodle \
  --env MARIADB_PASSWORD=bitnami \
  --env MARIADB_DATABASE=bitnami_moodle \
  --network moodle-network \
  --volume /path/to/mariadb-persistence:/bitnami/mariadb \
  bitnami/mariadb:latest

Step 3. Create the Moodle™ container with host volumes

docker run -d --name moodle \
  -p 8080:8080 -p 8443:8443 \
  --env ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes \
  --env MOODLE_DATABASE_USER=bn_moodle \
  --env MOODLE_DATABASE_PASSWORD=bitnami \
  --env MOODLE_DATABASE_NAME=bitnami_moodle \
  --network moodle-network \
  --volume /path/to/moodle-persistence:/bitnami/moodle \
  --volume /path/to/moodledata-persistence:/bitnami/moodledata \
  bitnami/moodle:latest

Configuration

Environment variables

Customizable environment variables

Name	Description	Default Value
MOODLE_DATA_DIR	Directory where to store Moodle data files.	${BITNAMI_VOLUME_DIR}/moodledata
MOODLE_DATA_TO_PERSIST	Files to persist relative to the Moodle installation directory. To provide multiple values, separate them with a whitespace.	$MOODLE_BASE_DIR
MOODLE_SKIP_BOOTSTRAP	Whether to perform initial bootstrapping for the application.	nil
MOODLE_INSTALL_EXTRA_ARGS	Extra arguments to pass to the Moodle install.php script.	nil
MOODLE_SITE_NAME	Moodle site name.	New Site
MOODLE_HOST	Moodle www root.	nil
MOODLE_CRON_MINUTES	Moodle cron frequency in minutes.	1
MOODLE_REVERSEPROXY	Activate the reverseproxy feature of Moodle.	no
MOODLE_SSLPROXY	Activate the sslproxy feature of Moodle.	no
MOODLE_LANG	Allow to define default site language	en
MOODLE_USERNAME	Moodle user name.	user
MOODLE_PASSWORD	Moodle user password.	bitnami
MOODLE_DATABASE_MIN_VERSION	Change database minimum version because of an issue with Azure Database for MariaDB.	nil
MOODLE_EMAIL	Moodle user e-mail address.	user@example.com
MOODLE_SMTP_HOST	Moodle SMTP server host.	nil
MOODLE_SMTP_PORT_NUMBER	Moodle SMTP server port number.	nil
MOODLE_SMTP_USER	Moodle SMTP server user.	nil
MOODLE_SMTP_PASSWORD	Moodle SMTP server user password.	nil
MOODLE_SMTP_PROTOCOL	Moodle SMTP server protocol.	nil
MOODLE_DATABASE_TYPE	Database type to be used for the Moodle installation.	mariadb
MOODLE_DATABASE_HOST	Database server host.	mariadb
MOODLE_DATABASE_PORT_NUMBER	Database server port.	3306
MOODLE_DATABASE_NAME	Database name.	bitnami_moodle
MOODLE_DATABASE_USER	Database user name.	bn_moodle
MOODLE_DATABASE_PASSWORD	Database user password.	nil

Read-only environment variables

Name	Description	Value
MOODLE_BASE_DIR	Moodle installation directory.	${BITNAMI_ROOT_DIR}/moodle
MOODLE_CONF_FILE	Configuration file for Moodle.	${MOODLE_BASE_DIR}/config.php
MOODLE_VOLUME_DIR	Persisted directory for Moodle files.	${BITNAMI_VOLUME_DIR}/moodle
PHP_DEFAULT_MEMORY_LIMIT	Default PHP memory limit.	256M
PHP_DEFAULT_MAX_INPUT_VARS	Default maximum amount of input variables for PHP scripts.	5000

When you start the Moodle™ image, you can adjust the configuration of the instance by passing one or more environment variables either on the docker-compose file or on the docker run command line. If you want to add a new environment variable:

• For docker-compose add the variable name and value under the application section in the docker-compose.yml file present in this repository:

moodle:
  ...
  environment:
    - MOODLE_PASSWORD=my_password
  ...

• For manual execution add a --env option with each variable and value:

  docker run -d --name moodle -p 80:8080 -p 443:8443 \
    --env MOODLE_PASSWORD=my_password \
    --network moodle-tier \
    --volume /path/to/moodle-persistence:/bitnami/moodle \
    --volume /path/to/moodledata-persistence:/bitnami/moodledata \
    bitnami/moodle:latest
  

Examples

This would be an example of SMTP configuration using a Gmail account:

• Modify the docker-compose.yml file present in this repository:

  moodle:
    ...
    environment:
      - MOODLE_DATABASE_USER=bn_moodle
      - MOODLE_DATABASE_NAME=bitnami_moodle
      - ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes
      - MOODLE_SMTP_HOST=smtp.gmail.com
      - MOODLE_SMTP_PORT=587
      - MOODLE_SMTP_USER=your_email@gmail.com
      - MOODLE_SMTP_PASSWORD=your_password
      - MOODLE_SMTP_PROTOCOL=tls
  ...
  

• For manual execution:

  docker run -d --name moodle -p 80:8080 -p 443:8443 \
    --env MOODLE_DATABASE_USER=bn_moodle \
    --env MOODLE_DATABASE_NAME=bitnami_moodle \
    --env MOODLE_SMTP_HOST=smtp.gmail.com \
    --env MOODLE_SMTP_PORT=587 \
    --env MOODLE_SMTP_USER=your_email@gmail.com \
    --env MOODLE_SMTP_PASSWORD=your_password \
    --env MOODLE_SMTP_PROTOCOL=tls \
    --network moodle-tier \
    --volume /path/to/moodle-persistence:/bitnami/moodle \
    --volume /path/to/moodledata-persistence:/bitnami/moodledata \
    bitnami/moodle:latest
  

This would be an instance ready to be put behind the NGINX load balancer.

• Modify the docker-compose.yml file present in this repository:

  moodle:
    ...
    environment:
      - MOODLE_HOST=example.com
      - MOODLE_REVERSEPROXY=true
      - MOODLE_SSLPROXY=true
  ...
  

• For manual execution:

  docker run -d --name moodle -p 80:8080 -p 443:8443 \
    --env MOODLE_HOST=example.com \
    --env MOODLE_REVERSEPROXY=true \
    --env MOODLE_SSLPROXY=true \
    --network moodle-tier \
    --volume /path/to/moodle-persistence:/bitnami/moodle \
    --volume /path/to/moodledata-persistence:/bitnami/moodledata \
    bitnami/moodle:latest
  

Installing additional language packs

By default, this container packs a generic English version of Moodle™. Nevertheless, more Language Packs can be added to the default configuration using the in-platform Administration interface. In order to fully support a new Language Pack it is also a requirement to update the system's locales files. To do that, you have several options:

Build the default image with the EXTRA_LOCALES build-time variable

You can add extra locales using the EXTRA_LOCALES build-time variable when building the Docker image. The values must be separated by commas or semicolons (and optional spaces), and refer to entries in the /usr/share/i18n/SUPPORTED file inside the container.

For example, the following value would add French, German, Italian and Spanish, you would specify the following value in EXTRA_LOCALES:

fr_FR.UTF-8 UTF-8, de_DE.UTF-8 UTF-8, it_IT.UTF-8 UTF-8, es_ES.UTF-8 UTF-8

NOTE: The locales en_AU.UTF-8 UTF-8 and en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8 will always be packaged, defaulting to en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8.

To use EXTRA_LOCALES, you have two options:

• Modify the docker-compose.yml file present in this repository:

  moodle:
  ...
    # image: bitnami/moodle:latest # remove this line !
    build:
      context: .
      dockerfile: Dockerfile
      args:
        - EXTRA_LOCALES=fr_FR.UTF-8 UTF-8, de_DE.UTF-8 UTF-8, it_IT.UTF-8 UTF-8, es_ES.UTF-8 UTF-8
  ...
  

• For manual execution, clone the repository and run the following command inside the X/debian-12 directory:

  docker build -t bitnami/moodle:latest --build-arg EXTRA_LOCALES="fr_FR.UTF-8 UTF-8, de_DE.UTF-8 UTF-8, it_IT.UTF-8 UTF-8, es_ES.UTF-8 UTF-8" .
  

Enable all supported locales using the WITH_ALL_LOCALES build-time variable

You can generate all supported locales by setting the build environment variable WITH_ALL_LOCALES=yes. Note that the generation of all the locales takes some time.

To use WITH_ALL_LOCALES, you have two options:

• Modify the docker-compose.yml file present in this repository:

  moodle:
  ...
    # image: bitnami/moodle:latest # remove this line !
    build:
      context: .
      dockerfile: Dockerfile
      args:
        - WITH_ALL_LOCALES=yes
  ...
  

• For manual execution, clone the repository and run the following command inside the X/debian-12 directory:

  docker build -t bitnami/moodle:latest --build-arg WITH_ALL_LOCALES=yes .
  

Extending the default image

Finally, you can extend the default image and adding as many locales as needed:

FROM bitnami/moodle
RUN echo "es_ES.UTF-8 UTF-8" >> /etc/locale.gen && locale-gen

Bear in mind that in the example above es_ES.UTF-8 UTF-8 is the locale needed for the desired Language Pack to install. You may change this value to the locale corresponding to your pack.

FIPS configuration in Bitnami Secure Images

The Bitnami Bitnami LMS powered by Moodle™ LMS Docker image from the Bitnami Secure Images catalog includes extra features and settings to configure the container with FIPS capabilities. You can configure the next environment variables:

• OPENSSL_FIPS: whether OpenSSL runs in FIPS mode or not. yes (default), no.

Logging

The Bitnami Docker image for Moodle™ sends the container logs to stdout. To view the logs:

docker logs moodle

Or using Docker Compose:

docker-compose logs moodle

You can configure the containers logging driver using the --log-driver option if you wish to consume the container logs differently. In the default configuration docker uses the json-file driver.

By default, the logging of debug information is disabled. You can enable it by setting the environment variable BITNAMI_DEBUG to true.

Maintenance

Backing up your container

To backup your data, configuration and logs, follow these simple steps:

Step 1: Stop the currently running container

docker stop moodle

Or using Docker Compose:

docker-compose stop moodle

Step 2: Run the backup command

We need to mount two volumes in a container we will use to create the backup: a directory on your host to store the backup in, and the volumes from the container we just stopped so we can access the data.

docker run --rm -v /path/to/moodle-backups:/backups --volumes-from moodle busybox \
  cp -a /bitnami/moodle /backups/latest

Restoring a backup

Restoring a backup is as simple as mounting the backup as volumes in the containers.

For the MariaDB database container:

 $ docker run -d --name mariadb \
   ...
-  --volume /path/to/mariadb-persistence:/bitnami/mariadb \
+  --volume /path/to/mariadb-backups/latest:/bitnami/mariadb \
   bitnami/mariadb:latest

For the Moodle™ container:

 $ docker run -d --name moodle \
   ...
-  --volume /path/to/moodle-persistence:/bitnami/moodle \
+  --volume /path/to/moodle-backups/latest/moodle:/bitnami/moodle \
-  --volume /path/to/moodledata-persistence:/bitnami/moodledata \
+  --volume /path/to/moodledata-backups/latest/moodledata:/bitnami/moodledata \
   bitnami/moodle:latest

Upgrade this image

NOTE: Since Moodle(TM) 3.4.0-r1, the application upgrades should be done manually inside the docker container following the official documentation. As an alternative, you can try upgrading using an updated Docker image. However, any data from the Moodle(TM) container will be lost and you will have to reinstall all the plugins and themes you manually added.

Bitnami provides up-to-date versions of MariaDB and Moodle™, including security patches, soon after they are made upstream. We recommend that you follow these steps to upgrade your container. We will cover here the upgrade of the Moodle™ container. For the MariaDB upgrade see: https://github.com/bitnami/containers/tree/main/bitnami/mariadb#upgrade-this-image

Step 1: Get the updated image

docker pull bitnami/moodle:latest

Step 2: Stop the running container

Stop the currently running container using the command

docker-compose stop moodle

Step 3: Take a snapshot of the application state

Follow the steps in Backing up your container to take a snapshot of the current application state.

Step 4: Remove the currently running container

Remove the currently running container by executing the following command:

docker-compose rm -v moodle

Step 5: Run the new image

Update the image tag in docker-compose.yml and re-create your container with the new image:

docker-compose up -d

Customize this image

The Bitnami Docker image for Moodle™ is designed to be extended so it can be used as the base image for your custom web applications.

Extend this image

Before extending this image, please note there are certain configuration settings you can modify using the original image:

• Settings that can be adapted using environment variables. For instance, you can change the ports used by Apache for HTTP and HTTPS, by setting the environment variables APACHE_HTTP_PORT_NUMBER and APACHE_HTTPS_PORT_NUMBER respectively.
• Adding custom virtual hosts.
• Replacing the 'httpd.conf' file.
• Using custom SSL certificates.

If your desired customizations cannot be covered using the methods mentioned above, extend the image. To do so, create your own image using a Dockerfile with the format below:

FROM bitnami/moodle
## Put your customizations below
...

Here is an example of extending the image with the following modifications:

• Install the vim editor
• Modify the Apache configuration file
• Modify the ports used by Apache

FROM bitnami/moodle

## Install 'vim'
RUN install_packages vim

## Enable mod_ratelimit module
RUN sed -i -r 's/#LoadModule ratelimit_module/LoadModule ratelimit_module/' /opt/bitnami/apache/conf/httpd.conf

## Modify the ports used by Apache by default
# It is also possible to change these environment variables at runtime
ENV APACHE_HTTP_PORT_NUMBER=8181
ENV APACHE_HTTPS_PORT_NUMBER=8143
EXPOSE 8181 8143

Based on the extended image, you can update the docker-compose.yml file present in this repository to add other features:

   moodle:
-    image: bitnami/moodle:latest
+    build: .
     ports:
-      - 80:8080
-      - 443:8443
+      - 80:8181
+      - 443:8143
     environment:
       ...
+      - PHP_MEMORY_LIMIT=512m
     ...

Notable Changes

3.9.0-debian-10-r17

• The size of the container image has been decreased.
• The configuration logic is now based on Bash scripts in the rootfs/ folder.
• The Moodle™ container now supports the "non-root" user approach, but it still runs as the root user by default. When running as a non-root user, all services will be run under the same user and Cron jobs will be disabled as crond requires to be run as a superuser. To run as a non-root user, change USER root to USER 1001 in the Dockerfile, or specify user: 1001 in docker-compose.yml. Related changes:
  • The HTTP/HTTPS ports exposed by the container are now 8080/8443 instead of 80/443.
  • Backwards compatibility is not guaranteed when data is persisted using docker or docker-compose. We highly recommend migrating the Moodle™ site by exporting its content, and importing it on a new Moodle™ container.

3.7.1-debian-9-r38 and 3.7.1-ol-7-r40

• It is now possible to use existing Moodle™ databases from other installations. In order to do this, use the environment variable MOODLE_SKIP_INSTALL, which forces the container not to run the initial Moodle™ setup wizard.

3.7.0-debian-9-r12 and 3.7.0-ol-7-r13

• This image has been adapted so it's easier to customize. See the Customize this image section for more information.
• The Apache configuration volume (/bitnami/apache) has been deprecated, and support for this feature will be dropped in the near future. Until then, the container will enable the Apache configuration from that volume if it exists. By default, and if the configuration volume does not exist, the configuration files will be regenerated each time the container is created. Users wanting to apply custom Apache configuration files are advised to mount a volume for the configuration at /opt/bitnami/apache/conf, or mount specific configuration files individually.
• The PHP configuration volume (/bitnami/php) has been deprecated, and support for this feature will be dropped in the near future. Until then, the container will enable the PHP configuration from that volume if it exists. By default, and if the configuration volume does not exist, the configuration files will be regenerated each time the container is created. Users wanting to apply custom PHP configuration files are advised to mount a volume for the configuration at /opt/bitnami/php/conf, or mount specific configuration files individually.
• Enabling custom Apache certificates by placing them at /opt/bitnami/apache/certs has been deprecated, and support for this functionality will be dropped in the near future. Users wanting to enable custom certificates are advised to mount their certificate files on top of the preconfigured ones at /certs.

Contributing

We'd love for you to contribute to this container. You can request new features by creating an issue or submitting a pull request with your contribution.

Issues

If you encountered a problem running this container, you can file an issue. For us to provide better support, be sure to fill the issue template.

License

Copyright © 2025 Broadcom. The term "Broadcom" refers to Broadcom Inc. and/or its subsidiaries.

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.