Moodle 2.8, Active Directory auth and not having email addresses

[localzuk]

I'm in the midst of a project investigating Moodle as a possible VLE for our school and one of the things I have noticed straight away is that when a user logs in for the first time, it demands they have a valid email address.

 

We don't issue email addresses to pupils at the moment, so we wouldn't want this to happen. The suggestions that Moodle's documentation make seem a bit flawed - use fake addresses or use a throwaway address. The first is flawed, as the system sends a confirmation email out to confirm it is a real address - I don't want to be inundating our ISP's SMTP server with junk emails, and the latter is just not going to happen due to the logistics of it.

 

I've seen people discussing earlier versions making recommendations to edit various files to remove the requirement, but I've not seen anything for 2.8+.

 

So, does anyone have a simple way to disable this?

[mrverrall]

Rather than configure moodle to use you ISP's upstream SMTP server you could run a local SMTP relay (e.g. exim on Linux) and configure that to 'blackhole' (or maybe deliver elsewhere) emails from moodle, perhaps with a custom domain, e.g. [email protected]

[localzuk]

That's not really a proper solution though - it adds complexity and another piece of software to manage.

 

If there's no quick and easy way, then I'll most likely end up editing moodle files instead.

[mrverrall]

I agree with you that it's a bit of a bodge.

 

Personally I would rather set up a simple local SMTP server to easily route the email output form moodle how I want, especially when the alternative is to edit the core moodle files and maintain those changes through all future updates.

 

The SMTP relay solution also means that email still works in Moodle where you want users to have real email addresses (e.g. for admins and teachers) while still canning all email traffic for students.

Edited January 26, 2015 by mrverrall

[mrverrall]

I would rather set up a simple local SMTP server

Obviously if you already have some local email infrastructure you could just use that

[unixman_again]

I would setup one email account and include it for all of your AD student users. They won't need to use it and you can direct the email address to your box and setup a filter to move it all straight to deleted.

[mrverrall]

Users emails need to be unique in Moodle. You could however use the oft forgot + syntax to alias each user to a single mailbox... e.g. [email protected]

[localzuk]

I'm quite surprised that after so many releases of Moodle, there still isn't a recognition that pupils in younger schools simply don't have email addresses!