Moodle system requirements

[User3204]

Hi,

We're just introducing Moodle as a VLE. Previously we had an unused Uniservity via the LA.

But, the machine seems to require massive amounts of RAM and CPU. We're running it on Vmware v Sphere4, and so far I have changed it from the original 1CPU and 4gb RAM to 4 CPU and 8gb RAM, and now it is running faster, but still not fast enough. The teacher says it can now handle 30 students, but it's not 'fast'.

I have looked through Google relating to Moodle and/or SQL on Vmware, and there's talk based around older versions of Moodle, but nothing about the new version.

It's running on Ubuntu server Lucid.

Does anyone have any ideas on what I should change to make it fast ? Or where I can look to see what may be causing the slowness ? The VM cluster reports it maxing out the CPU, even when it now has 4 CPUs.

[FN-GM]

It shouldnt need all those resources, something must be wrong. I am not a linux expert so cant help in that area. I have had it running on a similar spec machine to yours but with a few hundred on at one time and didnt have any issues.

[CyberNerd]

have you installed vmware tools?

what does

top

say?

[Max_Power]

Were running Moodle on vSphere and only have 1 CPU and 2GBs of memory and it works fine no problems at all, its set to everyone's home page in school so usage can be considered as high.

Check the performance and resource allocation in vSphere as a starting point to measure your CPU and memory usage.
Is the issue bound to one location i.e. through same switch or is it anywhere in school?

[glennda]

are you hosting on windows with apache or linux?

[carvjo]

The chosen moodle theme has a big impact on performance. We tried a theme that looked like facebook and it ran like a dog - yet with a simpler theme, it runs really fast..

[danbuntu]

to echo the other posts it sounds broken to me

I've used this in the past:

Mysql Monitor Tool | Free Development software downloads at SourceForge.net

This is handy to let you see what's going on in the mysql part. For example we had a lot of slow down on a new server due to the login requests not be processed fast enough and queuing up. We were able to see then easily in the process list, see what the issue was and then search for answers around this.

[User3204]

I'm running on Linux Lucid, I have looked through 'top' and when nothing is accesing nothing is happening on it, when students start to use it, we get a load of apache2 sessions firing off (not one per student, but we get about 20-30). When I check with the http://moodle/server-status page, I get the list of what these apacher are, and they relate to 'http://127.0.0.1 OPTIONS ~ mumble mumble' which when I check on Google (using the proper string that has escaped me), I get references that say this is okay, it's just the Apache server talking to itself (!) in a good way.

I have run the PHPMyadmin and looked at the InnoDB settuings status that is displayed in there, but other than a few red marks (which I'm not sure I understand) there's nothing that stands out to say 'HERE! THIS IS WHAT'S CAUSING IT!'

.. so I'm a bit confused...

When I check on the VM cluster, it reports that the CPU is what is being overused, not the RAM, which is totally counter to what I expect.

[CyberNerd]

vmware tools installed?

[glennda]

can you run

tail -f /var/log/apache2/error.log

then try access the this will tell you if there are any errors in your theme.

[User3204]

Well, it seems to be due to the Vmware cluster, I'd installed the client tools, and this made no apparent difference.

But we've stuck it onto an old server we had spare, a single core dual processor Xeon 2.8ghz... and it runs better on this with only 2gb RAM than it did on the Cluster. It's still whacking the processor on this server.

Although it's yet to be tested en masse, but the ICT teacher says it's running better than it was before...



So now he wants me to buy an i5 multi core 8gb RAM etc etc, because we're going to be using it a lot... riighht... I'm sure it needs that.

If I'm going to buy a kick-ass server, it's going into my VM Cluster and NOT to be used soley as a webserver...

[User3204]

can you run
then try access the this will tell you if there are any errors in your theme.

There was nothing flagged when I checked.