Installing Moodle

The fastest way to install Moodle on Flashcloud is Softaculous in cPanel: open your service's cPanel, find the Softaculous Apps Installer, search for Moodle, and run the install wizard. It handles the admin account and file permissions for you. The rest of this article covers the settings worth checking before and after that install.

Installing through Softaculous

1. Go to Services and open your hosting service, then launch the cPanel one-click login. See accessing cPanel if you haven't used it before.
2. In cPanel, open Softaculous Apps Installer and search for Moodle.
3. Click Install, choose the domain or subdomain and the install directory, and set your admin username, password, and site name.
4. Softaculous will create a database for the install. Note the database name in case you need it later for phpMyAdmin or a config edit.
5. Run the install. Moodle's own setup wizard finishes with a few configuration checks (cron, file paths) that Softaculous pre-fills correctly for our environment.

Set the right PHP version first

Moodle has specific PHP version requirements depending on the release you're installing. Check Moodle's current requirements before you install. Before installing, check your site's PHP version from the PHP Version tile in the portal and switch it if needed. This applies per domain.

If Moodle's installer complains about a missing PHP extension or a limit like upload_max_filesize being too small for course file uploads, that's not a PHP version problem. Extensions and per-extension toggles (like intl or soap, both of which Moodle can use) are managed in cPanel's Select PHP Version tool. Upload and memory limits are changed in MultiPHP INI Editor: choose the home directory or the specific domain's docroot, switch to Editor mode if you need a value Basic mode doesn't expose, and raise upload_max_filesize, post_max_size, and memory_limit to match the file sizes your courses will use.

Set up Moodle's cron job

Moodle relies on a scheduled task runner to send notifications, process the calendar, sync enrollments, and run scheduled backups. Without it, a lot of Moodle's background behavior stops working.

From your service page, open the Cron Jobs tile and add a new job that runs Moodle's cron script. Point it at admin/cli/cron.php inside your Moodle install directory - copy the exact path from your Softaculous install summary or File Manager rather than guessing it.

Every minute is Moodle's own recommendation; once every five minutes is a reasonable minimum if you want to keep the job count down.

Why it stays fast without extra tuning

Moodle is a database-heavy PHP application. Every course page, quiz attempt, and gradebook view triggers a batch of queries. Flashcloud hosting runs on LiteSpeed with LSCache by default, which is part of the same stack described in how we make your site fast. Moodle isn't WordPress, so it doesn't get the pre-configured LiteSpeed Cache plugin or Redis object cache described in the cache stack we ship with every WordPress install, but it still benefits from the server-level LSCache. For a course site with real concurrent users (live quizzes, forum activity), that server-level speed matters more than any plugin you could add inside Moodle itself.

Pointing a domain at your Moodle install

If you're installing Moodle on a domain that isn't already pointed at Flashcloud, update its nameservers first. The exact steps for GoDaddy, Namecheap, and Cloudflare-registered domains are in changing nameservers at GoDaddy, Namecheap, and Cloudflare. Let's Encrypt SSL is issued automatically once DNS resolves to us, so HTTPS should be ready shortly after.

When to contact support

If Softaculous fails partway through an install, or Moodle's requirements check flags something you can't resolve through PHP Version or MultiPHP INI Editor, open a ticket from Support in the portal. A real person will look at the install logs with you. There's no phone line, but tickets and live chat both reach our support team directly.