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"Webmin is a web-based interface for system administration
for Unix."
Webmin provides a web-based interface with modules that
communicate directley with standard programs and services on
your Linux machine. Essentially, Webmin allows you to manage
your network and machine services remotely from a browser.
Granted this idea is not unique, but what makes Webmin
different crowd is that it is useful to experienced and
inexperienced Linux administrators.
Installation:
Webmin is a large collection of CGI scripts. It runs its
own web server on a port that you specify (default 10000)
during installation. The full list of supported distros is
on their website, but just to name a few: Red Hat, Solaris,
Debian, *BSD, HP-UX, IRIX, AIX, DEC, SCO and Mac OS X.
Every service or program is connected through a set of
modules. If the app you want to control from Webmin is not
supported you can build a new mod.
Webmin
is distributed under the BSD license but if you build mods
for it then the modules can be distributed under any license
you choose. This keeps the tool open to the Open Source
community while allowing it to maintain its commercial
viability.
Installation is straigt forward; go to
www.webmin.com/webmin and download either the RPM or the
tar. If you use the tarball be sure to unpack the files want
them to reside. After you install Webmin do not remove the
Webmin directory or it wont work. An uninstall script is to
remove the initial directory as well as Webmin.
Inside
Webmin
After you have Webmin installed, open a web browser and go
to the IP address and port that you configured . The default
is 10000. After login, you will notice several tabs that
house the Webmin modules. The 'System' tab manages tasks
within the computer or server environment; including disk
quota, NIS, PAM, syslog, adding users, managing cron,
managing NFS and changing boot services, processes and
rebooting the machine.
The Servers group allows you to manage Apache, BIND, DHCP,
sendmail, Squid and many other services. The Networking
group allows quick, painless environment for setting
ipchains, and managing permissions of other network
utilities including ping, traceroute, whois and dig. The
Hardware group, of course, handles things that are directly
hardware-related. This is where you will find information
about your disk partitions, system time, network interface
configurations, LILO and even software RAID.
There are other groups and features that you should
explore. My favorite is Custom Commands. The Custom Commands
module allows you to build an interface to run any command
you write. Useful for telling Webmin to do something
specific not needing a full module.
Security
Webmin offers some security features. First, there is
ID/password authentication independent of /etc/passwd. You
can give access to Webmin without allowing any other system
privileges. Webmin supports SSL. If Perl SSL mod is
installed, your Webmin sessions can be encrypted to reduce
or eliminate the possibilty of sniffing sytem admin
processes and settings. You can grant users control over the
DNS server without giving access to Apache config, you can
also limit users to the domains they or their group own in
the DNS module. The ability to limit and distribute control
is helful for delegating tasks to other
administrators.Another feature I get use out of is the
ability to log all changes made via the interface.
Linux
Administration
Webmin interfaces directly with system config files, as a
result there is no database or that stores information that
can be hacked. The httpd.conf file can be edited for Apache
by hand without causing problems for Webmin. Also, Webmin
can be installed on a server and then be inherited by
someone else seemlessly. If there are problems the sytem can
be troubleshooted remotely and there is no need to have to
track down a database entry that correspondes to the ailing
module -- that is cool because it reduces the slope of the
learning curve. Everything you know about Linux can be used
in Webmin -- there are no changes except to make life
easier.
Newbie Linux administrators or users will love Webmin
because it can control most features that are important on a
Linux box from one location --you don't have to memorize or
write down all those long file paths, one of the number one
detractors for a newbie running linux. Webmin's standard
modules cover all of the basic administartive duties and
many more advanced operations. The beauty is that these
modules interface with almost every feature and function of
the service or program they support. This is a benefit for
newbie and the old breed alike because you can add config
options you may not know existed. Also, as mentioned above,
new modules can be built. There is plenty of documentation
and examples to get started if you are interested. That may
be a future topic of a tutorial on hackerthreads.org.
We also have used Webmin as our interface for web based
email. Since you can configure which modules users with
Webmin priveleges see we have given our basic users only
access to email modules. And since the program interfaces
directly with their mail box there is no discontinuity when
they access the box directly from a command line or other
email client. Webmin thus provides an SSL secure, easy to
administer, easy to access webmail solution for free! If you
have questions about how to implement this first Read The
Webmin Manual, then if you still get it email me and I will
try to help. But please, only email direct questions....not
where do I start.
A
Final Note
Webmin may not be for absolute beginners. If you do not
know basics like what a nameserver is, Webmin is not useful.
Webmin only provides an interface for the underlying Linux
config files, so you get flexibility and power, but it does
not substitute the need for being knowledgable. Wbemin
should be viewed as a useful tool not the total solution
Credits
Submitted by S.Plake <sep27@cornell.edu>
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