Connection issues with Mobile App on Android

Ian

ralfkrause Thank you so much for all your testing and advice. looking forward to trying this

Nicolas

ralfkrause Since I assume that there are a lot of Moodle servers with self-signed certificates in the world, there should be a switch in the Moodle app to trust a self-signed certificate.

This is certainly true. I suggest you open an issue in the Moodle tracker for such a feature, which is not only a MoodleBox issue.

ralfkrause

There are some issue in the tracker about self-signed certificates and Android
https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MOBILE-774
https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MOBILE-3520
https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MOBILE-3859
https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MOBILE-3880

And there is a discussion in the community forum about MoodleBox and the Moodle app
https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=424353

ralfkrause

I got an answer for this issue from Juan Leyva
https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MOBILE-3859

Juan Leyva added a comment - 2 hours ago
Hi Ralf,

unfortunately, we cannot accept self-signed certificates in the app or provide a switch to enable them. Please see a detailed explanation here https://cordova.apache.org/docs/en/latest/guide/appdev/security/

What's the point of using a self-signed certificate in the MoodleBox for a local network? I'd suggest that in that case it would be just better to use HTTP

Regards, Juan

Ralf Krause added a comment - 1 minute ago
Hi Juan,

yes, the MoodleBox is a server device for a local network. The idea with the set-signed certificate is that modern browsers want to get https connections. In the case of http only some browsers are showing a red coloured "not secure" error in the address field or a not secure message before opening the website. If you import the self-signed certificate into your device you do not get those messages anymore. https://moodlebox.net/en/help/connexion-https/

But if we setup the MoodleBox to https with the self-signed certificate then we can't use the Moodle app.

Best regards, Ralf

ralfkrause

I did a new test with the new MoodleMox 4.2.0 and the current Moodle app 3.9.5.

The nginx configuration in the MoodleBox is prepared for https. The https settings were added for MoodleBox 3.5.0 in November, 2019. https://github.com/moodlebox/moodlebox/releases/tag/v3.5.0

In the Cordova community they are discussing a lot about problems with self-signed certificates. The Moodle app developers are using the Cordova framework and some official plugins. They do not take any unofficial plugin an do not patch anything in this framework. The document from Cordova will tell everything about self-signed certificates. https://cordova.apache.org/docs/en/latest/guide/appdev/security/#self-signed-certificates

With the fresh installed MoodleBox 4.2.0 version I tested the nginx configuration again. I did the same as I wrote in https://discuss.moodlebox.net/d/254-mobile-app/19. I commented out all lines with ssl inside. And I restarted the MoodleBox.

I connected the Moodle app on my Android tablet to http://moodlebox.home. I found some interesting facts. First I tested the connection with the MoodleBox 4.2.0 image without any change. The Moodle app needed 61 seconds to show the second screen where you enter the username and the password. This was just better than my test with the MoodleBox 4.1.0 image where I got a timeout after 3 or 4 minutes. After I commented out the ssl lines in the nginx configuration in 4.2.0 the Moodle app connected within only 1 second!

Changing the nginx configuration seems to be the best solution for the Moodle app problems with the MoodleBox.

Ratna

ralfkrause I don't see the problem. If Moodle Mobile App works on HTTP (no 'S') I would make an isolated MoodleBox deliver exactly that, HTTP. If the MoodleBox is on the Internet, I would make it deliver HTTPS. Where is the problem?

ralfkrause

Ratna
The problem is that the Android Moodle app does not connect to the MoodleBox 4.1.0 while ssl is switched on in the nginx configuration. This problem will be a frustrating experience for a lot of Android users. There is no problem with iOS.

With the updated Raspberry Pi OS the problem got a little bit smaller ... but waiting more than 60 seconds for the first connection is not useful. I must wait more than 60 seconds to connect to the MoodleBox 4.1.0 with the Raspberry Pi OS update. And I must wait the same more than 60 seconds to connect to the MoodleBox 4.2.0.

When I disabled ssl in the nginx configuration the same connection process only took 1 to 2 seconds for the Android Moodle app. So if your users should use the Android app then it would be a good idea to switch ssl off. The Moodle app 3.9.5 does not work with https (http with ssl) and a self-signed certificate.

ralfkrause

Now we got an answer from Juan Leyva for this problem. Juan is the main developer of the official Moodle app. He wrote that we should switch off https completely to use the MoodleBox together with the Moodle app.
https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=424353#p1747266

Nicolas

ralfkrause I replied to the discussion for more info. Thanks for the heads up.

Nicolas

ralfkrause This solution will be implemented in an upcoming version of MoodleBox image. See https://github.com/moodlebox/moodlebox/issues/271.

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