Docker Moodle

A Docker Compose stack for deploying Moodle with a Traefik proxy.

Docker Compose breakdown

Stacks:

• moodle - The Moodle PHP-FPM application container
• moodle-web - Nginx container exposing Moodle to Traefik
• db - MariaDB container for Moodle's database
• redis - Redis container for caching and session storage
• traefik - Traefik reverse proxy handling routing and HTTPS

Volumes:

Volume	Purpose
moodle_src	The Moodle application source code. Mounted inside the Moodle container at /var/www/html.
moodle_data	The moodledata (cache, sessions, files, uploaded content). Mounted at /var/moodledata in the Moodle container.
db_data	The MariaDB database persistence.
redis_data	Redis data persistence (if configured) for caching and session storage.

Moodle sources:

Download and place the Moodle source files in the moodle/src folder.

You should have a structure like: moodle/src/[ Moodle sources files].

Installation

1. Copy the sample file .env-sample as .env and fill in the missing information.

2. Create the network:

docker network create web

3. Prepare the Docker stack:

• Edit your .env file
• Configure the traefik/acme.json file with the right permissions:

chmod 600 traefik/acme.json
chown $USER:$USER traefik/acme.json

• Download and prepare Moodle sources:

rm moodle/src/.keep
git clone -b MOODLE_501_STABLE https://github.com/moodle/moodle.git moodle/src

4. Build the stack:

docker compose up --build

5. Launch the app:

docker compose up -d

Traefik

Uncomment the following lines in docker-compose.yml to let Traefik display debug logs:

- "--log.level=DEBUG"
- "--accesslog=true"
- "--accesslog.format=json"

Database

Log into the MariaDB container:

docker compose exec db mariadb -u moodle -p moodle

Stats

Real time stats:

docker stats

Observe dockerd processes:

ps aux | grep dockerd | grep -v grep

Memory use by dockerd daemon:

ps aux | grep dockerd | awk '{print $4, $11}' | sort -nr
ps aux --sort=-%mem | head -20

App & Traefik logs:

docker compose logs -f moodle
docker logs traefik

Backups

Create backups of volumes:

docker volume ls

docker run --rm -v docker-moodle_db_data:/volume -v /opt/backup:/backup alpine tar czvf /backup/backup_moodle_db_data.tar.gz -C /volume .

Restore volumes:

Remove the containers:

docker compose down

Delete the volumes:

docker volume rm docker-moodle_db_data

Create the volumes:

docker volume create docker-moodle_db_data

Restore the backups:

docker run --rm -v docker-moodle_db_data:/volume -v /opt/backup:/backup alpine sh -c "tar xzvf /backup/backup_moodle_db_data.tar.gz -C /volume"

Localhost setup

Install mkcert and its dependencies:

brew bundle

Install the Docker compose stack:

docker compose -f docker-compose.local.yml build

Generate the certificates for localhost:

docker compose -f docker-compose.local.yml run --rm mkcert

Install the local certificates:

mkcert -install

Run the stack:

docker compose -f docker-compose.local.yml up -d

Upgrading Moodle

1. Remove Moodle's sources volume

docker compose down
docker volume ls
docker volume rm docker-moodle_moodle_src

2. Rebuild

docker compose build --no-cache

3. Run the upgrade cli

docker compose exec moodle php admin/cli/upgrade.php
docker compose exec moodle php admin/cli/purge_caches.php