The CloudSOE Moodle image gives you a complete Moodle 5.2 LMS — Apache, PHP 8.4, MariaDB, phpMyAdmin and SFTP — on a hardened Debian 12 base. The image contains no baked-in passwords: on first boot the VM creates its database, generates a per-instance TLS certificate and runs the Moodle command-line installer with a fresh admin password. There is no web installer to click through — you log in with generated credentials.
What you’ll need
- An Azure subscription
- An SSH public key (password login is disabled in the image)
- About ten minutes
Step 1 — Create the VM
- Find the CloudSOE Moodle offer in the Azure Marketplace and click Create.
- Choose a resource group, region and VM name.
- Pick a size — 2 vCPU / 4 GB (for example
Standard_B2sorStandard_D2as_v4) suits small-to-medium sites. - Under Administrator account, select SSH public key, pick a username (e.g.
azureuser) and paste your key. This account is the uid-1000 admin user that owns the credentials file and gets SFTP write access to the Moodle data directory. - Create or attach a public IP so you can reach the site. For production, make it Static so the address survives stop/start.
Step 2 — Open the firewall ports
In the VM’s network security group, allow inbound:
| Port | Protocol | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| 22 | TCP | SSH and SFTP administration |
| 80 | TCP | HTTP (redirects to HTTPS) |
| 443 | TCP | HTTPS (Moodle) |
Restrict port 22 to your own IP range where possible.
Step 3 — Let first boot finish
On the very first boot the VM runs a one-time setup service that:
- creates the Moodle database and a unique database password,
- generates a self-signed TLS certificate for your VM’s public IP,
- runs the Moodle CLI installer with your public IP as the site URL,
- generates the Moodle admin password and saves all credentials to a protected file.
The install takes a few minutes. You can watch it:
ssh <admin-user>@<public-ip>
systemctl status moodle-firstbootStep 4 — Retrieve your credentials
SSH in with the admin username you chose at deployment. The login banner (MOTD) shows the VM’s public IP and points at the credentials file:
sudo cat /opt/moodle/default-moodle-credentials.txtThis file (mode 600) holds the Moodle admin password generated on first boot, plus the MariaDB credentials (also your phpMyAdmin login).
Step 5 — Log in to Moodle
From your own machine (note: an Azure VM often cannot reach its own public IP from inside), browse to https://<public-ip>/ — plain HTTP redirects to HTTPS automatically. Your browser will warn about the self-signed certificate — expected on a fresh instance; see the configuration guide for switching to a trusted certificate and your own domain.
Log in as admin with the password from the credentials file, then change it under your profile preferences. Moodle is fully installed — start creating courses.
Next steps
- Configure Moodle — file locations, database access, HTTPS and domains
- Tips & tricks — backups, cron, performance and troubleshooting