Unfortunately, I don't think the tech people in my district would provide ssh access to anyone. Right now, the district's moodle installation is working passably, and I think the tech people are trying to shed responsibility for the moodle server, so they are just biding their time. I, by the way, have tried to make it very clear to them as well as the powers that be in the district that there is a possibility that they are underestimating the investment the teachers in the district have made to their moodle courses, and unless a VERY solid porting system is set up, there might be more than a little pushback in abandoning moodle. This is another reason I have chosen to go to my own server.
They have been quite cooperative as far as going in and changing settings I suggest. I was able to get backups working for large classes in the district by figuring out where the timeout setting was that was interfering with the creation of large zip files. They changed that and we were back in business.