Moodle LMS Hosted on AWS with Support from SolveDevOps

Moodle is an open-source learning management system (LMS) used by educators, administrators, and learners worldwide. This AMI from SolveDevOps delivers a complete, pre-configured Moodle 4.4 stack on AWS EC2 - so you can go from launch to a working LMS in minutes, not hours.

Full Moodle 4.4 Stack - Pre-Installed and Configured:

• Moodle 4.4 stable deployed to /var/www/html/moodle with data root on /opt/moodledata
• Apache with HTTPS forced via RewriteRule, mod_ssl and mod_rewrite enabled, dedicated access and error logs
• MariaDB bound to localhost with utf8mb4 encoding and file-based error logging
• PHP tuned to Moodle-recommended limits: memory_limit=512M, upload_max_filesize=1024M, post_max_size=1024M, max_execution_time=300, max_input_vars=5000
• Postfix configured for outbound mail delivery
• Moodle cron job scheduled to run every minute
• Certbot pre-installed for easy Let's Encrypt certificate setup

Per-Instance Credential Generation:

• On first boot, the instance automatically derives unique MariaDB root credentials and a dedicated Moodle database, user, and password from the instance ID
• A self-signed SSL certificate is generated in /etc/ssl/certs/solve-devops-dummycerts/
• All generated credentials are recorded in /opt/moodle-info/generated-credentials.txt
• No two instances share a secret - every deployment starts with unique credentials

Amazon CloudWatch Integration:

• CloudWatch agent pre-installed and enabled with a ready-made configuration
• Ships Apache access/error logs, MariaDB error logs, mail logs, syslog, and auth logs to CloudWatch Logs with 30-day retention
• Publishes CPU, memory, disk, TCP connection, and process metrics under the SolveDevOps/Moodle namespace
• Streams organized per instance ID for easy multi-instance monitoring

AWS Systems Manager Integration:

• SSM Agent installed and enabled for Session Manager, Run Command, Patch Manager, and Inventory
• Manage your Moodle instance without opening SSH ports to the internet

• Key-based SSH only - password authentication is disabled
• No root login permitted via SSH
• No secrets or AWS credentials baked into the image
• Cloud-init instance data and SSH authorized keys scrubbed at build time
• Unique credentials generated per instance - no shared default passwords
• HTTPS enforced with automatic HTTP-to-HTTPS redirect
• MariaDB locked down to localhost-only connections with secured root account

1. Launch the AMI and attach an IAM instance profile with CloudWatchAgentServerPolicy and AmazonSSMManagedInstanceCore
2. Open https:// (port 443; port 80 redirects automatically) to run the Moodle installer
3. Run sudo change-www to set your site URL
4. Replace the self-signed certificate using the pre-installed certbot
5. Find your database credentials at /opt/moodle-info/generated-credentials.txt

A login banner (motd) displays site and admin URLs, credential file location, the change-www command, and CloudWatch/SSM activation steps on every login. Full root access is provided.

• Scalability: Scale EC2 instances up or down based on learner demand
• Cost Optimization: Pay-as-you-go model with EC2, RDS, and S3 integration options
• High Availability: AWS infrastructure supports disaster recovery and redundancy
• Observability: Pre-configured CloudWatch logging and metrics give you visibility from the first boot
• Managed Access: SSM integration enables secure, auditable instance management

A university preparing for exam season needs to rapidly deploy a reliable LMS that handles increased traffic from students accessing quizzes and assignments simultaneously. With this AMI, the IT team launches a pre-configured Moodle instance on EC2, attaches CloudWatch monitoring to track performance under load, and uses SSM for secure remote management - all without manually installing or configuring the Moodle stack.