running Moodle using docker

Posted under » PHP » System Admin on 16 Apr 2025

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.

I can't install the latest Moodle directly because my Ubuntu uses an older version of PHP. I did consider upgrading the PHP but I want to try using Docker instead.

So I look for moodle in docker hub and this seems to be the most reliable (released on a regular basis with the latest distribution packages available). First thing I see is a Warning: This quick setup is only intended for development environments.

As usual, it is recommended that you pull the image from the hub

$ docker pull bitnami/moodle:latest

This step is unecessary because you will create a volume for Moodle™ persistence later (below)

Bitnami Moodle uses the Docker Image for MariaDB⁠ for the database requirements.It is running on the internal Docker network. Create one if it has not been created.

$ docker network create moodle-network

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

Create volumes for Moodle™ persistence and launch the container. Volumes are created at /var/lib/docker/volumes but you can't edit it. It is read only or stateless. Read Percona MySQL for another use of volume. If you want to be able to edit the data, you need to mount to 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

The -d options means, it is detached which means it will run in the background after hitting enter.

In the beginning, we have created moodle-network. Now can assign '--network moodle-network' for both moodle and mariadb. You can then run moodle already at port 8080. You will also see that

[::]:8080->8080/tcp, 0.0.0.0:8443->8443/tcp

I really don't care much about 8443 because I don't need it for SSL. With port 8080 I can convert it to 80 by reverse proxy. However, mariadb port 3306 is not exposed and is used internally by 'moodle-network'.

You may prefer installing Moodle the regular way »