Webwork administration

Adding a new course

Canvas

1. If you are copying an existing course, browse to that course on webwork.math.ucsb.edu and use the Hmwk Sets Editor to export all homework sets. If you're using an archived course, import it first.
2. Browse to webwork.math.ucsb.edu, click Course Administration, and log in.
3. Click Add Course. Set the Course ID and Course Title according to the existing pattern (math-<course#>-<section>-<term>-<instructor_name>).
4. Enter a user ID and password for the course instructor to use to log into the course. (Canvas does not handle admin access for courses the same way Moodle does, so a separate account is required.)
5. If you are copying an existing course, select it in the "Copy templates from" dropdown list.
6. Click Add Course.
7. Make the instructor aware of their course username/password, and link them to the Canvas homework instructions.

Upgrades

• Check the latest release notes for update information.
  • Usually the upgrade process will be a simple "git pull" in /opt/webwork/webwork2
  • Use "sudo -u wwadmin -s" first to get correct file ownership
  • Check the release notes for any configuration changes needed
• Update PG and the problem library by running "git pull" in the following directories:
  • /opt/webwork/pg
  • /opt/webwork/libraries/webwork-open-problem-library
• Restart the web server with "sudo systemctl restart webwork2"
• Run "/opt/webwork/webwork2/bin/upgrade_admin_db.pl" to do any needed database schema updates on the admin course.
• Log in to the admin course and click Upgrade Courses to upgrade the database schema for other courses.

Backups

• Webwork is backed up using Bacula -- see BackupOverview for details on how to perform restores.
• Before each backup the database is dumped to /var/backup/mysql/. The database is write-locked during these dumps, so they're guaranteed to be internally consistent. These are compressed SQL files that can be piped to the mysql client to re-create the database. The last three days of backups are kept; older versions can be retrieved by restoring them from Bacula.
• From the Aristotle console, it's possible to create a snapshot of the webwork.math.ucsb.edu's storage by going to Volumes, then clicking the three dots next to each webwork volume and choosing "Manage snapshots."
  • This is good practice before upgrades, since it's a convenient way to unwind them.
  • If it's necessary to roll back to a snapshot, it can be converted to a volume and attached to either the current webwork instance, or a new one.

Troubleshooting

Note: This deals with troubleshooting server issues. For end user issues see WebWork.

Database errors

• Unless an upgrade is in progress, these almost always indicate the database server has stopped running.
• This can happen if the server runs out of memory.
• Log into the server and try systemctl start mariadb
• You can also reboot the server, which should clear the problem.
  • Important: Either use reboot from the command line or, if it's unresponsive, "Restart" in the Aristotle instance menu. Do NOT select "Terminate" as this will delete the entire instance, instead of just shutting it down.
• If the server appears to have run out of memory it may be necessary to reduce workers in /etc/webwork/webwork2/conf/webwork2.mojolicious.yml If a memory leak is suspected, reducing accepts may also help. Consult the comments in webwork2.mojolicious.yml for more information.