Installing Webmin
This chapter explains how to download the appropriate Webmin
package for your operating system, how to install it and what
you will see after logging in for the first time.
Downloading Webmin for your system
The latest version of Webmin can always be downloaded from
http://www.webmin.com/.
At the time of writing, the latest release was version 1.070 ,
but new versions come out frequently. However, all the instructions
below will use version 1.070 for the filenames. If you download
a later release, the version number in all the filenames and paths
will have changed.
Some Linux distributions such as Mandrake and Caldera include
Webmin as standard, so it may already be installed on your system.
However, the version that they include may not be the latest official
version that is available for download. But if you are happy with
the release that you already have, you can skip this chapter.
Other Linux distributions like Debian and Gentoo include Webmin
as a package that can be downloaded and installed automatically.
On Debian, the command apt-get install webmin will install the
latest version available in the Debian APT repository. However,
this can sometimes be a few versions behind the newest official
release, so you may want to download from
http://www.webmin.com/
instead. On Gentoo Linux, the command emerge webmin will install
the latest version from the Gentoo Portage repository, which
should be the same as the newest official release.
If you are upgrading from an older Webmin version, the process
is exactly the same as installing for the first time. Any changes
that you have made to the configuration of Webmin itself or to
other servers like Apache or Sendmail will be left unharmed by
the upgrade.
While Webmin supports a wide variety of Unix variants, it does
not cover all of them. Because it deals with system configuration
files that differ in location and format between different kinds
of Unix operating system, it has been written to behave differently
depending on the type of operating system that it is running on.
To see a complete list of supported operating systems, visit
the web page
http://www.webmin.com/support.html. If your
operating system is not on the list, you cannot use Webmin.
Before downloading Webmin for installation on your system,
you have to choose which package format to download it in. The
available formats are :
*RPM *If you are running Redhat,
SuSE? , Mandrake, Caldera, MSC
or any other Linux distribution which supports the RPM packaging
format, then the RPM package is your best choice.
*tar.gz *The tar.gz packaged version of Webmin will work on any
operating system, but is slightly harder to install than the
RPM and Solaris packages.
*Solaris package *If you are running Solaris on Sparc or x86,
then this is the package format for you.
For instructions on installing your chosen package type, see
the appropriate section below.
Installing the RPM package
On every page of the Webmin website is a link in the top-right corner
for the RPM package. A link can also be found on the page
http://www.webmin.com/download.html.
Once you have downloaded it, you should have a file on your Linux
system named something like webmin-1.1.070-1.noarch.rpm
. To install, run the following command as root :
rpm –U webmin-1.1.070-1.noarch.rpm
The RPM install can only fail if you do not have Perl installed,
or if Webmin cannot identify your operating system. If that occurs
and your Linux distribution is on the list of those supported,
you should install the tar.gz version instead. Because all Linux
distributions are slightly different, the Webmin install process
has to positively identify the exact distribution and version
that you are running, such as
Redhat 7.3. This can fail if one
of the files that contain the distribution name (such as /etc/issue)
has been modified.
Assuming the RPM install completes successfully, you will be
able to login to Webmin immediately. Open a web browser, and go
to the URL
http://localhost:10000/ if you are running the browser
on the same Linux system that Webmin was installed on, or
http://_your-systems-hostname_:10000/
if the browser is being run on another PC. Either way, a web form
will appear prompting for a username and password as shown in
Figure 2-1.
You should be able to login as root, using the same password as
the root Unix user on your Linux system. If the password is changed
using the command-line passwd command or the Users and Groups
module, your Webmin password will change too.
** Figure 2-1 “The Webmin login page”
If the
OpenSSL? library and the Net::SSLeay Perl module have already
been installed on your system, Webmin will automatically start
in SSL mode. This means that you should use a URL starting with
https:// instead of
http:// to connect to it. Attempting to connecting
with the non-SSL URL will only bring up a page with a link to the
https:// URL on it, that you should follow to login.
Installing the tar.gz package
On every page of the Webmin website is a link in the top-right corner
for the tar.gz package. A link can also be found on the page
http://www.webmin.com/download.html.
Once you have downloaded it, you should have a file on your system
named something like webmin-1.1.070.tar.gz . To install the
package, follow these steps :
- Login to your system as root .
- Choose a directory under which you want Webmin installed. This is usually /usr/local, but can be /opt or any other location that you prefer. The instructions below will use /usr/local for simplicity.
- Copy the webmin-1.1.070.tar.gz file to the /usr/local directory.
- Run the following commands to uncompress and extract the tar.gz file and run the setup script : cd /usr/local gunzip webmin-1.1.070.tar.gz tar xf webmin-1.1.070.tar cd webmin-1.1.070 ./setup.sh
- After running the setup.sh script, you will be asked a series of questions that control the installation process. The questions and their meanings are : Config file directory [/etc/webmin] The directory in which Webmin will store all of its own configuration files. It is best just to hit enter to accept the default of /etc/webmin. If this directory already exists from an older version of Webmin that you are upgrading from, this is the only question that will be asked. Log file directory [/var/webmin] The directory in which Webmin's log and process ID files will be stored. Just hit enter to accept the default of /var/webmin for this one as well. Full path to perl The location of the Perl executable on your system. If it is at /usr/bin/perl or /usr/local/bin/perl then you can just type enter to accept the default. Otherwise, you must enter the full path to the Perl interpreter. Operating system This question will only be asked if Webmin cannot automatically identify your operating system. You must enter the number next to one of the operating system names that appears in the list before the question. Version Like the question above, this will only be asked if Webmin cannot identify your operating system. Again, you must enter the number next to one of the version numbers displayed. Web server port (default 10000) The HTTP port on which Webmin listens. It is best to stick with the default, unless you are running some other network server on port 10000. Login name (default admin) The username that you will use to login to Webmin with. admin is the traditional username, but anything can be used. Login password The password that must be entered along with the username. You must enter this twice, to verify that you haven't accidentally made a mistake. Use SSL (y/n) This question will only be asked if you have already installed the OpenSSL? and Net::SSLeay libraries on your system, as explained in chapter 3. If you enter y, Webmin will use SSL right from the start. However, even if you enter n you can still turn it on later. Start Webmin at boot time (y/n) This question controls whether Webmin will be starting when your system boots up, which means that you do not have to re-start it yourself manually every time you reboot. If you want to have it started at boot, just enter y. If not, enter n.
- After all the questions have been answered, the install process will finish and a message showing the URL that you can use to login will appear. You can now delete the old webmin-1.1.070.tar file if you no longer need it. However, do not delete the /usr/local/webmin-1.1.070 directory that was created when the tar file was extracted. This contains all the scripts that Webmin needs to run.
Now that the package has been installed, you can open a web browser,
and go to the URL
http://localhost:10000/ if you are running
the browser on the same Linux system that Webmin was installed
on, or
http://_your-systems-hostname_:10000/ if the browser
is being run on another PC. Either way, a web form will appear prompting
for a username and password as shown in Figure 2-1. Login using
the username and password that you chose before in response to
the
Login name and
Login password questions.
If you answered yes to the SSL question, you should use a URL starting
with
https:// instead of
http:// to connect. If Webmin detects
a non-SSL connection when it is in SSL mode, it will display a page
with a link to the correct URL.
Installing the Solaris package
The Solaris package version of Webmin is only available for download
from
http://www.webmin.com/download.html. Once you have
downloaded it, you should have a file on your Solaris system named
something like webmin-1.1.070-1.pkg.gz . To install, run the
following commands as root :
gunzip webmin-1.1.070.pkg.gz pkgadd –d webmin-1.1.070.pkg.gz
WSwebmin
The Solaris package can only fail if you already have Webmin installed,
or if you do not have the Perl executable at /usr/local/bin/perl.
If you have Perl installed somewhere else on your system, you
should create a symbolic link from /usr/local/bin/perl to the
real location.
Assuming the Solaris package install completes successfully,
you will be able to login to Webmin immediately. Open a web browser,
and go to the URL
http://localhost:10000/ if you are running
the browser on the same Linux system that Webmin was installed
on, or
http://_your-systems-hostname_:10000/ if the browser
is being run on another PC. Either way, a web form will appear prompting
for a username and password as shown in Figure 2-1.
You should be able to login as root, using the same password as
the root Unix user on your Linux system. However, if you change
the Unix root password in future the Webmin root user will not
change. This is because the package install just copies the current
password from the /etc/shadow file.
The Webmin user interface
Assuming the installation process and login were successful,
your browser should show Webmin main menu with the
Webmin category
selected, as shown in Figure 2-2. You can switch to other categories
by clicking on the icons along the top of the page, such as
System,
Servers or
Others. Every module is a member of one category,
and a table of icons for each module in the selected category will
appear in the body of the page. To enter a module, just click on
its icon.
** Figure 2-2 “Modules in the Webmin category”
To logout of Webmin, just click on the
Logout link that appears
in the top-right corner of every page. To send some feedback to
the author (that's me), click on the
Feedback link that is next
to the
Logout button. To visit
http://www.webmin.com/, click
on the
Webmin logo in the top-left corner of any page.
If you are using a different theme, the user interface will appear
different to the screen shown in Figure 2-2. Some versions of
Webmin that come with Linux distributions use a different theme
by default, such as Mandrake and Caldera. However, the main menu
will still show categories and modules, maybe using different
size icons in a different on-screen layout. All the screens in
this book were taken using the default theme, so you may want to
switch to it now. See chapter 51 for instructions on how to change
the current theme.
All Webmin modules have a common layout and user interface, in
order to make navigation easier. When you click on a module icon
from the main menu, the main page of the module will appear. For
example, Figure 2-3 shows the main page of the Disk Quotas module.
** Figure 2-3 “The Disk Quotas module main page”
At the top are the category icons that appear on every Webmin page,
so that you can easily switch to another module. Below are links
for
Help,
Module Config and
Search Docs. Not every module
will display all of these links, but where they appear they have
common purposes :
Help Opens a pop-up window containing an overview of the module
and options available on the main page.
Module Config Displays a form containing configurable options
for the current module. See Figure 2-4 for an example of the options
available in the Disk Quotas module. Each module has its own set
of options, but all use a similar interface for editing them.
In most cases, for normal use of a module you will not need to change
any of these configuration options.
Search Docs Displays a list of Unix man pages, package documentation,
HOWTO files and web sites related to the server or program that
the module is configuring. This can be useful for finding out
additional information about the underlying configuration
files and commands that Webmin is using.
** Figure 2-4 “The configuration page for the Disk Quotas module”
Other pages below the first in each module also have a common layout.
Figure 2-5 shows a page from the Disk Quotas module as an example.
Below the list of category icons is a link labeled
Module Index,
which will always return you to the module's main page, which
can be found on almost every page of every module. Next to it is
another
Help link, which pops up a window displaying information
on the current page. Not all pages have online help, so this link
will not always appear. Finally, at the bottom of the page is a
link whose label starts with
Return to, which will take you
back one level in the module's hierarchy of pages.
** Figure 2-5 “An example page from the Disk Quotas module”
Uninstalling Webmin
If for some unimaginable reason you want to remove Webmin from
your system, you can just login as root and run the command : /etc/webmin/uninstall.sh
This command will ask if you are sure you want to uninstall, and
if so will delete the Webmin scripts and configuration directories.
This means that any configuration you have done to Webmin itself
such as changing IP access control, switching theme or creating
new Webmin users will be lost. However, there will be no harm done
to the configuration of other servers such as Apache or Sendmail,
even if they were done using Webmin.
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