CarolBooth

Any experiences with ZiLink?

Thanks Synaesthesia, that tallies with the impression we've had from them so far. How long have you been with Overnet Data? Do you use their new 'communicator' feature?

We currently pay WebAnywhere for our Moodle/SIMS integration and additionally have a parent portal (Insight) out of SIMS from TASC software. We're looking at alternative suppliers and I'd like to hear about any companies I should talk to and your experiences with them. So far I've talked to OverNet Data and SalamanderSoft thanks Carol

I've had this issue before with a blank screen on upgrade. Removing one of your contrib blocks usually fixes it. I've had it with the gmail blocks, I just removed the relevant directory and moodle re-appeared. Last time, removing the folder for the block (e.g. /usr/share/blocks/gmail) and replacing with a fresh latest version of the block solved the problem. In the past I've also fully uninstalled blocks and re-installed. I hope that's some help Carol

Segmentation faults solved! It was due to apc memory set too small. Changed from 100M to 300M and now seems happy - no segfaults for 2 days now new content of /etc/php5/conf.d/apc.ini: extension=apc.so apc.shm_size = 300M apc.max_file_size=10M Interestingly (?) I had previously been setting apc memory size in /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini I take it that apc.ini overrides whatever is in php.ini having said that, I'd still love to know why I can't get apache to do a core dump - any advice welcomed

Segmentation faults solved! It was due to apc memory set too small. Changed from 100M to 300M and now seems happy - no segfaults for 2 days now new content of /etc/php5/conf.d/apc.ini: extension=apc.so apc.shm_size = 300M apc.max_file_size=10M Interestingly (?) I had previously been setting apc memory size in /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini I take it that apc.ini overrides whatever is in php.ini having said that, I'd still love to know why I can't get apache to do a core dump - any advice welcomed

I posted this about failing to track down apache segmentation faults on our Moodle server on the Learning Platforms forum but maybe this is really more of an Ubuntu issue. I hope it's not rude to post here too.

I'm running Moodle 2.6 on Ubuntu 12.04, apache 2.2.22, php 5.3.10 using apc 3.1.7-1 I've been noticing occasional segmentation faults in the apache logs for over a year but lately they are getting much more frequent (5 today!) Can't think of any settings changes which coincide with the increase although we went up to Moodle 2.6 from 2.5 in the Summer I've been attempting to get apache to core dump as I've read that I will then be able to use gdb to track down the source of the error but it doesn't write the dumps I have done: set up core dump directory: this line in /etc/apache2/apache2.conf: CoreDumpDirectory /etc/apache2/apache2-gdb-dump in /etc/apache2/ drwxrwxrwx 2 www-data www-data 4096 Mar 19 2014 apache2-gdb-dump ensured core dump size isn’t limited with ulimit -c unlimited installed gcore restarted apache apache logs have lots of lines like: [Mon Sep 22 14:37:35 2014] [notice] child pid 22909 exit signal Segmentation fault (11), possible coredump in /etc/apache2/apache2-gdb-dump ... but no core dump is getting written I've seen some stuff about debug symbols but I can't work out where to get them. Any help really gratefully received! Carol Here's what I've been doing on my test server to try and test core dumping: carol@ubuntuTEST:~$ ps waux | grep apache root 1607 0.0 1.8 327412 71880 ? Ss 14:01 0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start www-data 1610 0.0 0.1 327436 6024 ? S 14:01 0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start www-data 1611 0.0 0.1 327436 6024 ? S 14:01 0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start www-data 1612 0.0 0.1 327436 6024 ? S 14:01 0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start www-data 1613 0.0 0.1 327436 6024 ? S 14:01 0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start www-data 1614 0.0 0.1 327436 6024 ? S 14:01 0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start carol 2284 0.0 0.0 9396 880 pts/0 S+ 15:16 0:00 grep --color=auto apache carol@ubuntuTEST:~$ sudo gcore 1607 [Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled] Using host libthread_db library "/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libthread_db.so.1". warning: no loadable sections found in added symbol-file system-supplied DSO at 0x7fff103fe000 0x00007ff4b3bc9683 in select () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 warning: Memory read failed for corefile section, 1048576 bytes at 0x7ff4a4cd9000. ... many more lines like this Saved corefile core.1607 carol@ubuntuTEST:~$ sudo gdb /usr/sbin/apache2ctl core.1607 GNU gdb (Ubuntu/Linaro 7.4-2012.04-0ubuntu2.1) 7.4-2012.04 Copyright © 2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. Type "show copying" and "show warranty" for details. This GDB was configured as "x86_64-linux-gnu". For bug reporting instructions, please see: ... "/usr/sbin/apache2ctl": not in executable format: File format not recognised [New LWP 1607] warning: no loadable sections found in added symbol-file system-supplied DSO at 0x7fff103fe000 Core was generated by `apache2'. #0 0x00007ff4b3bc9683 in ?? () (gdb)

We haven't got a support contract but that location should really help. Thanks!

clever solution. thanks for the idea iceman

Any advice on tracking down what permission in the standard staff user type on our CC4 network is blocking ntlm authentication to our Moodle? We're using IE 10 on a CC4 network NTLM authentication for our Moodle has been working nicely for a couple of years, students are fine and Staff accounts that haven't been reset for a few months are fine but any recently created or reset staff users get presented with the login details request pop up instead of getting signed in. We've isolated the problem to the base staff user type but since we can't see what the permissions of staff in previous versions of the staff user type, it's proving really hard to find what needs changing. Anyone else experienced this or any advice on how to list actual current permissions of a user? thanks! Carol

Hi Iceman did you use moodle assignment data or write a free standing system?

I am really struggling to work out what is happening! Our moodle is hosted on site and assignments work perfectly well if our internet connection is down but students who have an internet ban in the RM Managment Console can do everything in moodle other than upload a file. Is there a technology that the internet ban is blocking? how can this be??? thanks Carol

Thanks Jeremy and Nadeem I'm afraid that was too good to be true. I changed both settings to 40 but when logged in as teacher, the Courses block on MyMoodle still defaults to 10. Anyone used forced settings in php.ini? Carol

i'm using moodle 2.4 on ubuntu By default, the MyMoodle page displays just 10 courses (and for my installation at least there isn't even a link to the other courses - just a notice saying 'you have X hidden courses'. I know a lot of users are not going to fix this for themselves, even if I tell them many times, so I'd like to fix it for them. I have tried editing the courses block on the default My Moodle page but this is not reflected for individual users. I can see in the database that when a user overrides the default (in this case to 'always show all'), a record is placed in mdl_user_preferences like: id userid name value 9325 2 course_overview_number_of_courses 0 I'm not so keen on adding a record for every single user into this table so I looked at config-dist.php and found //========================================================================= // 9. FORCED SETTINGS //========================================================================= // It is possible to specify normal admin settings here, the point is that // they can not be changed through the standard admin settings pages any more. // // Core settings are specified directly via assignment to $CFG variable. // Example: // $CFG->somecoresetting = 'value'; // // Plugin settings have to be put into a special array. // Example: // $CFG->forced_plugin_settings = array('pluginname' => array('settingname' => 'value', 'secondsetting' => 'othervalue'), // 'otherplugin' => array('mysetting' => 'myvalue', 'thesetting' => 'thevalue')); // This looks to me like a good place to change a default but I'm not sure what the name of the core setting would be. Any advice? thanks - Carol

thanks, that makes sense. Pardon my ignorance of Postfix but could this happen if there was nothing in the postfix config to make it happen?

Thanks very much Geoff and sorry for slow response to your very fast response (I had an old email address registered with this account) I had another look in postfix config and definitely nothing there but helpful to know I was looking in the right file! I think we may have a redirect set up somewhere on our network. Is there a way to find out from my server? Carol

ubuntu 10.04.1 moodle 2.2.2+ postfix Having trouble sending mail from moodle server. We used to have a zimbra server on site but have now switched to gmail and after reading the guidance at Email setup gmail - MoodleDocs (and failing to make that work) I decided to go back to letting moodle send its own mail and re-installed postfix. It seems that it's still trying to relay via our old zimbra server but I can't find this in any settings to switch it off. Where next? thanks! Carol extract from mail log: Oct 4 09:49:10 moodle postfix/pickup[29848]: F2DE51401CE: uid=33 from= Oct 4 09:49:10 moodle postfix/cleanup[30702]: F2DE51401CE: message-id= Oct 4 09:49:11 moodle postfix/qmgr[23021]: F2DE51401CE: from=, size=791, nrcpt=1 (queue active) Oct 4 09:49:11 moodle postfix/smtp[30705]: F2DE51401CE: to=, relay=zimbra.wolsingham.internal[10.0.0.6]:25, delay=0.07, delays=0.01/0.01/0.04/0.01, dsn=5.1.7, status=bounced (host zimbra.wolsingham.internal[10.0.0.6] said: 501 5.1.7 Bad sender address syntax (in reply to MAIL FROM command)) Oct 4 09:49:11 moodle postfix/cleanup[30702]: 100F81401D9: message-id=<[email protected]> Oct 4 09:49:11 moodle postfix/bounce[30706]: F2DE51401CE: sender non-delivery notification: 100F81401D9 Oct 4 09:49:11 moodle postfix/qmgr[23021]: 100F81401D9: from=<>, size=2944, nrcpt=1 (queue active) Oct 4 09:49:11 moodle postfix/qmgr[23021]: F2DE51401CE: removed Oct 4 09:49:11 moodle postfix/error[30707]: 100F81401D9: to=, relay=none, delay=0.01, delays=0/0/0/0, dsn=5.1.3, status=bounced (bad address syntax) Oct 4 09:49:11 moodle postfix/qmgr[23021]: 100F81401D9: removed

We've been very happy with mrbs for room bookings in Moodle1.9 but when I installed the latest version of the block on my Moodle2 test server... The block appears to install fine but then I get "Coding error detected, it must be fixed by a programmer: PHP catchable fatal error" when I click the link to 'schedule a resource' Has anyone had success with mrbs and Moodle2? -or any advice on tracking down the problem on my own? thanks! Carol Using Moodle 2.2.1+ (Build: 20120112) on Ubuntu 10.04.1 and block davosmith-moodle-mrbs-5d23096.zip from the 'download for Moodle2' on moodle.org

Upgrading to Zimbra 7 IMAP proxy wouldn't start so we just stopped our Zimbra running IMAP proxy since it's a single server installation. Everybody is happy apart from the Head whose Blackberry now refuses to talk to Zimbra. We've even set up port forwarding so requests the standard IMAP proxy port are now forwarded to the IMAPS port. Anyone got experience of making Blackberries happy with Zimbra? thanks

We have a very happy Moodle VLE but our student site(course) is less than inspiring. Has anyone got any fun ideas for things that students will enjoy, especially students can administer themselves? Thanks! Carol

Running 2 servers on Ubuntu 8.04, one runs moodle, the other zimbra. We've just upgraded to Zimbra 6.07 and it's started bouncing the forum digests from the Moodle server on the same network (never a problem before). I've tried whitelisting the domain the moodle.local and also wolsinghamschool.net on the zimbra server by editing /opt/zimbra/conf/salocal.cf.in but no joy. excerpt from mail log on Moodle server: Sep 20 20:00:01 moodle postfix/local[3002]: C14B41401B7: to=, relay=local, delay=0.04, delays=0.02/0.01/0/0.01, dsn=5.1.1, status=bounced (unknown user: "x.bell100") Sep 20 20:00:01 moodle postfix/cleanup[3000]: C60631402D6: message-id=<[email protected]> Any advice welcome! Carol

Here's my crib sheet for the process using the command line, adapted from the zimbra wiki (we have a specific COS for students but you can ignore this part if you don't use different COSs) Carol first log in as zimbra on the command line then: To create one account with a password that is assigned to a specified COS. You must know the COS ID number. To find a COS ID, type zmprov gc zimbraID or look at the Class of Service in the admin console. The number appears top right Create Account: Type on one line. zmprov ca [email protected] test123 displayName JSmith some example account attributes: displayName = 'forename surname' givenName = forename sn = surname Examples: to create one account: zmprov ca [email protected] zimbraCOSid displayName <'Joe Bloggs'> givenName sn to force a user to change password: zmprov ma [email protected] zimbraPasswordMustChange TRUE to change description: zmprov ma [email protected] description S12345 to delete: zmprov da j*@wolsinghamschool.net Zmprov Command Files (bulk) The Zmprov command will accept commands from a file (or stdin) as input. Create a text file ("commands.zmp" for example) with the zmprov subcommands each on a line. createAccount [email protected] password displayName 'Andy Anderson' givenName Andy sn Anderson createAccount [email protected] password displayName 'Betty Brown' givenName Betty sn Brown This can be set up in Excel then saved as tab delimited. Note fields with spaces must have 'inverted commas' around them Then send the contents of the file to zmprov. Logged in As Zimbra: zmprov < commands.zmp

haven't had time to try this but thanks - that might solve another problem I've got for uploading my room bookings into mrbs (used as a block in our moodle)

Hi Our SLT want to share calendars including their timetables and private calendar entries. We have Zimbra so they can share personal calendars but I have no clue how to get their timetables in there. Is there an export out of SIMS into ical format or anything in SIMS that would do this? thanks! carol