Open edX

Introduction

According to the [], “The Open edX platform is a free--and open source--course management system (CMS) that was originally developed by edX. The Open edX platform is used all over the world to host Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as well as smaller classes and training modules.”

Installation

Installation of a test system under Ubuntu 16

There are many different ways to install and run an edX server.

Overview

If you have free access to a server machine, the easiest method is probably installing the "bitnami" stack (README.txt file. It will install a complete software pack in a separate directory including web servers, database servers, several programming languages, etc. The version we tried included:

 - Open edX eucalyptus.3
 - Apache 2.4.25
 - Elasticsearch 0.90.11
 - Erlang 17.4
 - Java 1.8.0_121
 - Memcached 1.4.35
 - MongoDB 2.6.12
 - Mysql 5.6.35
 - Node.js 6.10.0
 - Python 2.7.13
 - RabbitMQ 3.6.8
 - Rails 4.2.8
 - Ruby 2.1.10
 - RubyGems 1.8.12

If your machine already runs web servers, data base servers, etc. it will use other ports. From the README file: “The default listening port for Apache is 8080, for Elasticsearch 9300, for Memcached 11211, for MongoDB 27017, for MySQL is 3306, for RabbitMQ 5672, for Open edX XQueue 18040 and 18010 for Open edX CMS. If those ports are already in use by other applications, you will be prompted for alternate ports to use.” This does of course require that you allow that...

Summary of ports that must be openend or can remain local (user installation for a system with an existing LAMP/Java stack, changed apache default from 8080 to 8000)

PORTS used by edX standard and custom installations

Service	system default ports	default user install ports	our user install	our root install (machine already had a LAMP stack)	requires open firewall
mysql_port	3306	3307	3307	3307
smtp_port	587	587	587	587
apache_server_port	80	8080	8000	81	x
apache_server_ssl_port	443	8443	8443	443	x
mongodb_port		27017	27017	27017
elasticsearch_port		9200	9200	9200
elasticsearch_node_port		9300	9300	9300
rabbitmq_server_port		5672	5672	5672
rabbitmq_management_port		15672	15672	15672
Open edX XQueue		18040	18040	18040	x
Open edX CMS		18010	18010	18010	x

Installation summary for a simple user

Bitnami console (after a succesful install)

Firstly, have a look at this bitnami doc which is not really advertized.

Here are the steps:

• Get the LOCAL INSTALL OpenEx installer from https://bitnami.com/stack/edx
• Make the file executable:

chmod a+x bitnami-edx-eucalyptus.3-0-linux-x64-installer.run

• Create an empty directory somewhere

mkdir /path_yours/edx

• Run the installer (and wait for a very long time)

./bitnami-edx-eucalyptus.3-0-linux-x64-installer.run

In the beginning it will ask your for an admin login, mail and password. It also requires SMTP information (anonymous is not allowed, so need an account). Alternatively you can use a gmail address.

Important. You won't have to wait for a few minutes, but for a very long time, e.g. about 30 minutes on an older but idle Ubuntu 16 box.

• Launch it once the installer is done. You will get a little console (see picture to the right). This console is fairly useless if you are connected through an terminal. Instead you could run the following:

cd your_installation_directory
./ctlscript.sh status

This will not mean that you actually can use the server, since you very likely may have a firewall that blocks outside access to your server.

To test in the terminal if the server is actually working your could just type wget localhost:8000 (adapt the port number).

• Adapt the firewall (of course you also can restrict to a local network)

# show open ports
sudo ufw status
# add port 8000 (adapt to yours)
sudo ufw allow 8000/tcp
# Open for the Studio (else you cannot create courses)
sudo ufw allow 18010/tcp
# add port 8000 to a restricted area
sudo ufw allow 8000/tcp from ip_number_here
# Reload the firewall 
sudo ufw reload

Now if you plan to use this as a little production environment

• Open the firewall (see above)
• you should tell your system to launch this script at boot time. E.g. read this.

Bugs (April 27 2017)

• The installation script will run and install under your login. It can not figure out your group name and some configuration files will be wrong. Fix group names in:

properties.ini
apps/edx/conf/httpd-cms.conf
apps/edx/conf/httpd-lms.conf
apps/xqueue/conf/httpd-xqueue.conf

• The start up page will display an empty URL (see above). Somehow, Apache will start despite wrong group names, but then something goes wrong. Fix the group name problem, shut down everything and restart.

• Studio will not allow saving an edited block Problem not solved so far. The problem seems to be quite frequent, but not clear solution was posted in forum messages I found.

installation under root

Since saving a studio edit does not work, I tried reinstalling the whole thing under root.

sudo su
ufw allow 81/tcp
ufw allow 443/tcp
ufw reload
./bitnami-edx-eucalyptus.3-0-linux-x64-installer.run

Below is a slightly censored transcript of the installation dialog. I basically used default values.

To start/stop the server

You can use the included ctlscript.sh utility:

ctlscript.sh start|stop|restart

EdX will be available on the selected port, e.g.

http://yourserver_ip_or_name:8080

Again, if this does not work from your client machine, adapt the firewall settings (see above)

edX administration panel

Configuration

By default, anyone now can require an account and will get it. This may attract spammers.

After login into the system you cannot do anything, except signing up for the demo class and configuring the profile.

Log into the admin console:

http://yoursite/admin

It only will be available on the localhost, which is really bad news if you cannot run an Xserver on your client machine. If you do happen to have a client linux machine (I do) then you can run firefox on the server machine. Connect to the server with the -XY option !!

ssh your_server -XY
sudo apt-get install firefox

Now your freaky Ubuntu will not run the firefox you just installed, but a copy of the one you already may have running on your local machine. Type:

firefox --new-instance

Open http://localhost:8000/admin and enjoy the difficult editing over a remote X connection.

• Read 4. Configuring the Open edX Platform & enjoy for now.

Alternatives

The same company also provides solutions for Virtual Machines compatible with Oracle VirtualBox and VMware vSphere, Workstation, and Fusion

Creating a course

For creating courses one is supposed to use studio. Of course, none of the obvious documentation will tell where to find it. I will. If you configured your firewall as suggested above, then it is here:

• http://yoursite:18010/

Yes it runs by default on port 18010 !

• http://yoursite:edx_port/edx-studio also works and will redirect to the above.

Read http://docs.edx.org/