by Luis De Sousa.
Hi there. I solved the problem partially. The "Permission denied" was because SELinux was not permitting httpd/apache2 to make network connections (I am using CentOS). I needed to change an SELinux boolean value using the following command:
setsebool -P httpd_can_network_connect = 1
Now, the "Test setting" for the external database is successful. But still users can not authenticate from external database to my new moodle because they are not recognized. The result is Invalid username or password. Any help on this is appreciated. Best Regards
Luis