Set up local MuTMS or Moodle demo site using Docker

A self-contained local demo of MuTMS or Moodle LMS.

Requirements

• Docker Engine or OrbStack — Docker Desktop is not required.
• Git — pre-installed on macOS and most Linux distributions.

Windows is not currently supported. A separate project providing Windows support via WSL2 is planned.

Quick start

Clone this repository and run the init script:

git clone https://github.com/mutms/demo mydemo
cd mydemo
bin/init

The script accepts optional parameters to configure the demo site:

bin/init [port] [shortname] [fullname]

For example:

bin/init 9502 acme "Acme Corporation"

If fullname is not provided, shortname is used instead. Parameters default to 9501, MuTMS, and MuTMS respectively. The values are saved to .env and reused on subsequent runs.

The script will:

• create the site/, dataroot/, database/, and backups/ directories
• clone the MuTMS distribution based on the latest Moodle 5.1.x into site/moodle/
• add basic Moodle config.php
• start the Docker services
• install Composer dependencies
• initialise the Moodle database using MariaDB
• configure the site URL and admin account

Once complete, the site is available at http://127.0.0.1:9501/

Admin credentials: admin / admin

Tip: To set up a vanilla Moodle 5.1.x site instead, run bin/init-moodle in place of bin/init.
You can also place any other Moodle 5.1.x codebase in site/moodle/ manually before running either init command.

Backup and restore

Sudo requirements

• OrbStack users: bin/backup and bin/restore can be run without sudo.
  OrbStack runs Docker in a user-owned environment, so elevated privileges are not required.

• Docker Engine users (Linux, macOS without OrbStack):
  bin/backup and bin/restore must be run with sudo because they access directories owned by root and manipulate Docker volumes directly.

If you run without sudo on a non-OrbStack system, the script will stop with a clear error message.

Backup

sudo bin/backup mybackup

This creates backups/mybackup.tgz containing:

• the MariaDB database dump
• the Moodle dataroot
• the Moodle or MuTMS codebase
• the demo.env configuration file

Restore

sudo bin/restore mybackup

This will:

• stop and remove the current demo site
• delete the existing site/, dataroot/, database/, and demo.env
• extract the backup
• restore the original port from the backup
• start the site again using MariaDB

The port is preserved intentionally because Moodle stores the site URL in the database.

Moving a demo to another machine

Copy the .tgz file(s) into the backups/ directory on the target machine and run:

sudo bin/restore mybackup

Commands

Command	Description
bin/init	First-time setup of MuTMS: clone, configure, and install
bin/init-moodle	Clones vanilla Moodle 5.1.x instead of MuTMS
bin/stop	Stop the Docker services — use this to stop the demo site
bin/start	Start the Docker services — start previously stopped demo site
bin/update	Upgrade to the latest minor release (usable only if codebase obtained via git)
bin/down	Remove Docker containers and images, all site data is kept
bin/backup	Backup entire demo site — requires sudo unless using OrbStack
bin/restore	Restore demo site backup — requires sudo unless using OrbStack

bin/down does not delete the site/, dataroot/, or database/ directories.
Remove those manually if you want a completely clean state.

Directory layout

demo.env                local configuration: port, shortname, fullname (created by init script)
assets/                 configuration files and helper scripts
backups/                demo site backups (created by bin/backup or uploaded manually)
compose.yml             Docker Compose configuration
bin/                    management commands
database/               MariaDB data directory (created by init script)
dataroot/               Moodle data directory (created by init script)
site/moodle/            Moodle or MuTMS codebase directory (git clone by init script)
site/moodle/config.php  Moodle configuration file (copy of assets/config.php by init script)