Config.php file in latest Moodlebox

Nkduodu

Hello,

My router (Netgear R6220) seems not to have the DNS -IP Address feature. I used WinSCP to access the Moodlebox and now trying to edit the config file in my MoodleBox with the IP address given by my router so other devices on my LAN (both wired and wireless) can access the MoodleBox via that IP Address. I can't fid the config file. i've done this before (i think with ver 3.6/7) but now i can't find this config file to edit. HELP please.

Nicolas

Nkduodu My router (Netgear R6220) seems not to have the DNS -IP Address feature.

You don't need a router to use the MoodleBox. What do you want to achieve?

Ratna

Nkduodu If your users don't mind accessing the Moodle in the MoodleBox by its IP address, then you don't need any DNS. Just change the line $CFG->wwwroot = 'http//moodlebox.home'; in the Moodle configuration file accordingly. It is in /var/www/moodle.

You should remember that MoodleBox can have two IP addresses - one for the wireless interface and one for the Ethernet (wired) interface. The Ethernet address is dynamic, may also be absent if no network cable is connected. So it is better to use the wireless IP, which is always 10.0.0.1.

I don't think it is a good idea to change PHP code through WinSCP - if you mean transfering them to your Windows computer, edit and transferring back to the MoodleBox. Windows programs have the habit of inserting control code to text files which PHP don't like. The preferred program is PuTTY. See https://moodlebox.net/en/help/command-line-connection/. You have to replace moodlebox.home in the screen-shot with the IP address.

Michael

Hello together,

just to be shure. If I change the config.php in /var/www/moodle from moodlebox.home in 192.168.178.xx then I have two possibilities to reach my moodlebox. One is with the internal WLAN and the old moodlebox.home address, the other is with the IP-address 192.168.178.xx over my ethernet? I tried this and it seems to work but I am not shure if I damaged any other function...?

Nicolas

Michael Do you mean you changed your config.php by updating the line:

$CFG->wwwroot   = 'http://moodlebox.home';

If this is the case, the only (but important) problem is accessing Moodle via two distinct URLs is strongly discouraged (for any Moodle server, not only MoodleBox), as all Moodle resources are stored in the database with the full URL of the server. If the IP address changes, which is common on DHCP configurations, this will fail your Moodle sooner or later. Don't do it (see also https://discuss.moodlebox.net/d/41-ethernet-access/8).

If your Moodle must be responding on multiple IP addresses or domain names, use proper masquerading and DNS. See eg. https://docs.moodle.org/39/en/Masquerading.

Ratna

Michael As Nicolas already pointed out, you can access Moodle only under one web-address, where ever the client is. This address is the one you've entered in $CFG->wwwroot. If it is a domain name, then the DNS of the client must resolve the domain name to one of the IP address of MoodleBox - of the wireless interface or the Ethernet (wired) interface. And also the routing of the client must provide a path to that IP address.

But in the case of MoodleBox, there is a rather surprising (undocumented) method, since the MoodleBox is itself a router. You have discovered it: set $CFG->wwwroot to the Ethernet LAN side IP, in your case http://192.168.178.xx (FritzBox?) then clients in the LAN 192.168.178.0/24 have no problem. But also the devices in the MoodleBox's hotspot, 10.0.0.0/24, also find it, because the default route of those devices is the MoodleBox.

You won't break anything experimenting with that. Only thing your need to run the https://docs.moodle.org/39/en/Search_and_replace_tool every time you change the wwwroot of a Moodle instance.

Michael

Thanx to you both for the answers.
@ Nicolas - Yes, this is the case. But I don't want to connect to my moodlebox from the internet, it's just for my ethernet. My Fritzbox is not able do what I need and because I want do use an ipad also, the option with localhost is not working.
@Ratna - This sounds good to me. Do I understand right, if I don't want to reach the moodlebox over internet, I don't have to run the "https://docs.moodle.org/39/en/Search_and_replace_tool" because internally I have had no problems till now?

Nicolas

Michael Yes, this is the case. But I don't want to connect to my moodlebox from the internet, it's just for my ethernet.

This has nothing to do with Internet access: if Moodle URL (read: "IP address and/or domain name") changes, you risk problems with the Moodle instance. E.g. if you access sometimes via http://moodlebox.home and sometimes via http://192.168.178.23, you have this problem.

Isn't possible in your Fritzbox to have the name "moodlebox.home" (or another name) pointing to the IP address of your MoodleBox?

Edit: See https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/406267 to get something like "moodlebox.fritz.box". See also (in german): https://www.tippscout.de/fritzbox-interne-domaenennamen-nutzen_tipp_4217.html.

Ratna

Michael About https://docs.moodle.org/39/en/Search_and_replace_tool. It says "This is useful when a Moodle site is moved from one server to another or when the URL changes." Means even if the address has changed from http://moodlebox.home to http://192.168.1.xx, or to ..moodlebox.fritz.box or anything, you need to run it. This has nothing to do with the Internet, it is valid everywhere, in the Internet or a private LAN. The reason is, Moodle keeps the full URL of the site in its database. So just changing $CFG->wwwroot is not enough.

IMO https://discuss.moodlebox.net/d/195-configphp-file-in-latest-moodlebox/3 is a new thread.

Michael

In my Fritzbox it is not possible to change the name into moodlebox.home. The dot is the reason for an error. Though without ".home" it isn't working also. Another name without a dot would probably work.

Nicolas

Michael Another name without a dot would probably work.

I don't own a Fritzbox, but I doubt it (since any domain name must have at least a dot in its name).

Guessing: what you should enter (without a dot) is maybe the part ("xxxxxx") that begins the "xxxxxx.fritz.box" domain. Try to enter "moodlebox", replace $CFG->wwwroot value with moodlebox.fritz.box and see if URL "moodlebox.fritz.box" works.

Michael

First of all, thank you for your patience and your motivation to support me.
A few things to be clearly:
In my Fritzbox I see the Moodlebox as "moodlebox" and I have assigned a fixed IP-address. It is not possible to rename it into "moodlebox.home" because the dot is not available. So far so good...
Now I followed your advice and I've replaced the "$CFG->wwwroot = 'http://moodlebox.home';" with "$CFG->wwwroot = 'http://moodlebox';" in "config.php" as the box is named in my Fritzbox. And it seems to work, the "xxxx.fritz.box" ist not necessary so far.
Two more questions at this point:

Do I have to do the "search and replace" to be completly correct? If yes, I would search for "moodlebox.home" and replace this with "moodlebox", right?
Why is this more safe/better than using a fixed IP-address in config.php? The moodlebox has at this time still to addresses (moodlebox.home & moodlebox). Im not a network guru, so I try to understand the idea behind.