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Configuration

In this section we will guide you through the options you need to configure to setup your moocng instance.

Most of the settings go to a file called local_settings.py which is located inside the moocng package. It is very important that you never modify the settings.py file directly since it will be overriden when moocng is update with a new version.

If you have followed the installation instructions, the local_settings.py file should be located at /var/www/moocng/lib/python2.7/site-packages/moocng-X.Y.Z-py2.7.egg/moocng/local_settings.py

Note

Bear in mind that the exact path may be different in your case, specially the Python and moocng version numbers. The path fragment :file:`moocng-X.Y.Z-py2.7` is ficticious and will be something like |full_release_name| in real life.

Database connection

The first you should configure is the database connection settings. Actually you probably have done that if you have followed the installation instructions since this is required to create the database schema.

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql_psycopg2',
        'NAME': 'moocng',
        'USER': 'moocng',
        'PASSWORD': 'secret',
        'HOST': '',
        'PORT': '',
    }
}

Rabbitmq connection

Similar to the database connection settings, you need to configure the message broker connection settings:

BROKER_URL = 'amqp://moocng:moocngpassword@localhost:5672/moocng'

Where the syntax of that url is amqp://user:password@host:port/virtual_host

FFmpeg location

It's required to configure the FFmpeg path in the moocng settings. The default value is:

FFMPEG = '/usr/bin/ffmpeg'

Static root

In this step you will collect all necessary static resources needed by moocng and put them in a single directory so you can serve them directly through your web server increasing the efficiency of the whole system.

The STATIC_ROOT option is the absolute path where the static files will be copied. It is recommended to be placed outside the moocng package. The user who runs the Apache process will need read access to this directory.

STATIC_ROOT = '/var/www/moocng/static'

Once you have configured this option you should run the collectstatic Django command to copy the static files to that destination:

 $ source /var/www/moocng/bin/activate
 $ django-admin.py collectstatic --settings=moocng.settings

You have requested to collect static files at the destination
location as specified in your settings file.

This will overwrite existing files.
Are you sure you want to do this?

Type 'yes' to continue, or 'no' to cancel: yes

Media root

In a similar fashion as the Static root, the media root is an absolute path where the files uploaded by the moocng users will be stored. It is also recommended to put this directory outside the moocng package:

MEDIA_ROOT = '/var/www/moocng/media'

You should create this directory since you are going to change its permissions when configuring the web server:

$ mkdir /var/www/moocng/media

Secret key

The secret key is a random string that Django uses in several places like the CSRF attack protection. It is considered a security problem if you don't change this value and leave it as the moocng default.

You can generate a random value with the following command:

$ tr -c -d '0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz' </dev/urandom | dd bs=32 count=1 2>/dev/null;echo

And then set it in the SECRET_KEY option:

SECRET_KEY = 'qt6p480yug2t36on4ugpynp31tyveq39'

Google Analytics support

This setting is optional and allows you to integrate your moocng with Google Analytics so you can track who, when and how uses your site.

Just set the Google Analytics Code in this setting:

GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_CODE = 'XX-XXXX'

Theme

TODO

Registry and profile URLs

moocng does not handle any user registration or user profile information. It needs an external service for this. There are two options in the settings to configure these urls:

REGISTRY_URL = 'https://idp.example.com/simplesaml/module.php/userregistration/newUser.php'
PROFILE_URL = 'https://idp.example.com/simplesaml/module.php/userregistration/reviewUser.php'

Amazon S3 configuration

moocng use S3 to storage users uploaded files. You need an Amazon AWS account and create a bucket to store the files.

The bucket must be configured with the next CORS configuration:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<CORSConfiguration xmlns="http://s3.amazonaws.com/doc/2006-03-01/">
    <CORSRule>
        <AllowedOrigin>*</AllowedOrigin>
        <AllowedMethod>PUT</AllowedMethod>
        <MaxAgeSeconds>3000</MaxAgeSeconds>
        <AllowedHeader>Content-Type</AllowedHeader>
        <AllowedHeader>x-amz-acl</AllowedHeader>
        <AllowedHeader>origin</AllowedHeader>
        <AllowedHeader>Accept</AllowedHeader>
        <AllowedHeader>Accept-Charset</AllowedHeader>
        <AllowedHeader>Accept-Encoding</AllowedHeader>
        <AllowedHeader>Accept-Language</AllowedHeader>
        <AllowedHeader>Access-Control-Request-Headers</AllowedHeader>
        <AllowedHeader>Access-Control-Request-Method</AllowedHeader>
        <AllowedHeader>Connection</AllowedHeader>
        <AllowedHeader>Host</AllowedHeader>
        <AllowedHeader>Origin</AllowedHeader>
        <AllowedHeader>Referer</AllowedHeader>
        <AllowedHeader>User-Agent</AllowedHeader>
    </CORSRule>
</CORSConfiguration>

To improve the security in production environments you can define a more strict AllowedOrigin setting in your CORS configuration.

And your settings must define your account data, your bucket and the expire time of upload permissions.

AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID = "your-access-key-id"
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY = "your-secret-key-id"
AWS_STORAGE_BUCKET_NAME = "your-bucket-name"
AWS_S3_UPLOAD_EXPIRE_TIME = (60 * 5) # 5 minutes

Web server configuration

The recommended way to serve a moocng site is with a real web server that supports the WSGI (Web Server Gateway Interface) protocol. This is no surprise since the same applies to Django.

If you use the Apache web server all you need to do is write the following configuration into your specific virtual host section:

NameVirtualHost *:80

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName moocng.example.com
  DocumentRoot /var/www/moocng/static/

  SetEnv VIRTUALENV /var/www/moocng

  WSGIScriptAlias / /var/www/moocng/lib/python2.7/site-packages/moocng-X.Y.Z-py2.7.egg/moocng/wsgi.py
  Alias /static/ /var/www/moocng/static/
  Alias /media/ /var/www/moocng/media/
</VirtualHost>

Note

Bear in mind that the exact path may be different in your case, specially the Python and moocng version numbers. The path fragment :file:`moocng-X.Y.Z-py2.7` is ficticious and will be something like |full_release_name| in real life.

Finally, you need to make sure that the user that the Apache run as has write access to the media directory and read access to the static directory of your moocng site.

# Fedora example:
$ chown apache:apache /var/www/moocng/media
$ chown apache:apache /var/www/moocng/static

# Debian/Ubuntu example:
$ chown www-data:www-data /var/www/moocng/media
$ chown www-data:www-data /var/www/moocng/static

SAML configuration

SAML require a cert. You can create your own self-signed certificates. For other purposes buy them:

  • Follow the first five steps of this guide: http://www.akadia.com/services/ssh_test_certificate.html
  • Create a directory called "saml2" at you moong folder
  • Create inside it a certs directory
  • Copy the 'attributemaps' of moocng inside the saml2
  • Copy server.key and server.crt to saml2/certs
openssl genrsa -des3 -out server.key 2048
openssl req -new -key server.key -out server.csr
cp server.key server.key.org
openssl rsa -in server.key.org -out server.key
openssl x509 -req -days 365 -in server.csr -signkey server.key -out server.crt

In moocng, in the settings.py there is a SAML_CONFIG var. You must copy this var in your local_settings and configure the params based in your environment.

moocng uses djangosaml2, to config it check the doc at http://pypi.python.org/pypi/djangosaml2

In order to connect openmooc with an IdP, you will need its metadata. Download it and save as remote_metadata.xml (check the saml configuration to check that the path and name match)

Now you need to add the SAML SP metadata to your IdP. First of all you need to configure in the IdP the metarefresh issue. After that you can go to the idp and call update entries, You can go to a url like this: https://idp.example.com/simplesaml/module.php/metarefresh/fetch.php

Asset configuration

Slot duration time of assets should always be multiple of the asset slot granularity.

That slot granularity is set to five minutes by default. To use another value, simply specify a different value (in minutes) in the ASSET_SLOT_GRANULARITY property of the settings file.

Enabling required services

There are several services that need to be active in the server so it is best to configure them to start on the server boot.

$ chkconfig --add httpd
$ chkconfig --add rabbitmq-server
$ chkconfig --add postgresql
$ chkconfig --add mongod
$ chkconfig --add celeryd
$ chkconfig postgresql on
$ chkconfig httpd on
$ chkconfig rabbitmq-server on
$ chkconfig mongod on
$ chkconfig celeryd on

Openbadges integration

The badges used in the platform can be integrated with Mozilla OpenBadges system (http://openbadges.org/). Every time, a student gets a badge, an assertion (OBI compliant) is created.

You can configure the openbadges service to use, by default the official backpack OpenBadges service:

BADGES_SERVICE_URL = 'backpack.openbadges.org'

To generate the assertion, we use some functions attached to post_save signals:

save_identity_for_user()

Copies the actual user data to the assertion for future consistency.

create_identity_for_user()

As the assertion identity hash contains the email information, if the email changes, the identity should also change.

You must define your issuer info in the settings variables.

BADGES_SERVICE_URL = "backpack.openbadges.org"
BADGES_ISSUER_NAME = "OpenMOOC"
BADGES_ISSUER_URL = "http://openmooc.org"
BADGES_ISSUER_DESCRIPTION = ""
BADGES_ISSUER_IMAGE = ""
BADGES_ISSUER_EMAIL = ""