Webmin IS A Modern, Web Control Panel for Any Linux Machine. IT ALLOWS You to Administer Your Server Through An Simple Interface. With Webmin, You Can Change Settings for Common Packages on the Fly.

In this Tutorial, You'll Install and Configure Webmin on Your Server and Secure Access to the Interface with a Valid Certificate using Let's Encrypt. You'll then Use Webmin to Add New User Accounts, And Update All Packages on Your Server from the Dashboard.

Prerequisites.

To Complete This Tutorial, You Will Need:

• One Ubuntu 16.04 Server Set Up by Following, Including A Sudo Non-Root User and a Firewall.
• Apache Installed by footlowing. WE'LL USE Apache to Perform Let's Encrypt's Domain Verification.
• A FULLY-QUALIFIED DOMAIN NAME (FQDN), WITH A DNS A. Record Pointing to the IP Address of Your Server. To Configure This, Follow The Tutorial.

Step 1 - Installing Webmin

First, We Need To Add The Webmin Repository So That We Can Easily Install and Update Webmin using Our Package Manager. We do do this by adding the repository to the /etc/apt/sources.list File.

Open The File In Your Editor:

• sudo Nano /etc/APT/sources.list.

Then Add This line to the new repository: TEN LINE TO THE NEW REPOSITORY:

/etc/apt/sources.list.

. . . dEB http://download.webmin.com/download/repository Sarge Contrib

Save the File And Exit The Editor.

Next, Add the Webmin PGP Key So That Your System Will Trust The New Repository:

• wget http://www.webmin.com/jcameron-key.asc
• sudo Apt-Key Add JCameron-Key.Asc

Next, Update The List of Packages to include the Webmin Repository:

• sudo Apt-Get Update

THEN Install Webmin:

• sudo Apt-Get Install Webmin

Once The Installation Finishes, You Be Present by the following: Following Output:

Webmin Install Complete. You can now login to https: // Your_server_ip: 10,000 as root with your root password, or as Any User Who Can Use` sudo`.

Please Copy Down This Information, As You Will Need It for the Next Step.

Note: If You Installed UFW During The Prerequisite Step, You Will Need to Run The Command Sudo Ufw Allow 10000 in Order to Allow Webmin Through the Firewall. For Extra Security, You may Want to Configure Your Firewall to Only Allow Access to this port from Certain IP Ranges.

Let's Secure Access to Webmin by Adding a Valid Certificate.

Step 2 - Adding A Valid Certificate With Let's Encrypt

Webmin Is Alady Configured to Use Https, But It Uses A Self-Signed, Untrusted Certificate. Let's Replace it WITH A VALID CERTIFICATE FROM LET'S ENCRYPT.

Navigate to https: // Your_domain: 10,000 In Your Web Browser, Replacing Your_Domain with the Domain Name You pointed at your You Server.

Note: WHEN LOGGING IN FOR THE FIRST TIME, YOU WILL SEE AN "INVALID SSL" ERROR. This Is Because The Server Has Generated A Self-Signed Certificate. ALLOW THE EXCEPTION TO CONTINU SO YOU CAN REPLACE THE SELF-SIGNED CERTIFICATE WITH ONE FROM LET'S ENCRYPT.

You'll be preceded with a login screen. Sign In With the Non-root User You Created While Fulfilling The Prerequisites for this Tutorial.

Once You Log In, The First Screen You Will See Is The Webmin Dashboard. Before You Can Apply A Valid Certificate, You Have to Set The Server's Hostname. Look for the System Hostname. Field and Lick On The Link To the Right, AS Shown in the Following Figure:

This Wil Take You To The HostName and DNS Client Page. Locate HostName. Field, And Enter Your Fully-Qualified Domain Name Into The Field. Then Press The. Save. Button At The Bottom of the Page to Apply theestting.

After You've Set Your Hostname, Click ON Webmin. On The Left Navigation Bar, And Then Click ON Webmin Configuration..

Then, Select. SSL Encryption From the List of Icons and Then Select The Let's Encrypt. Tab. You'll See A Screen Like The Following Figure:

Using This Screen, You'll Tell Webmin How to Obtain and Renew Your Certificate. Let's Encrypt Certificates Expire After 3 Monhs, But We Can Instruct Webmin to Renew Certically Attempt to Renew The Let's Encrypt Certificate Every Month. Let's Encrypt Looks for a verification File On Our Server, So We'll Configure Webmin to Place The Verification File Inside The Folder / Var / Www / Html, Which Is The Folder That The Apache Web Server You Configured in The Prerequisites Uses. Follow These Steps to Set Up Your Certificate:

1. Fill In. HostNames for certificate. With your FQDN.
2. For WebSite Root Directory for Validation File, SELECT THE Other Directory. Button and ENTER / VAR / www / html.
3. For MONTHS BETWEEN AUTOMATIC RENEWAL Section, Deselect The Only Renew MANUALY. Option by typing 1 INTO THE INPUT BOX, AND SELECTING THE RADIO BUTTON TO THE LEFT OF THE INPUT BOX.
4. Click The. Request Certificate. Button. After a Few Seconds, You Will See a Confirmation Screen.

To Use The New Certificate, Restart Webmin by Clicking The Back Arrow in Your Browser, And Clicking The Restart Webmin. Button. Wait Around 30 Seconds, And Then Reload The Page and Log In Again. Your Browser Should Now Indicate That The Certificate Is Valid.

Step 3 - Using Webmin

You've Now Set Up a Secure, Working Instance Of Webmin. Let's Look At How to Use IT.

Webmin Has Many Different Modules That Can Control Everything from the Bind DNS Server to Something As Simple As Adding Users to the System. Let's Look At How to Create A New User, And Then Explore How to Update The Operating System using Webmin.

Managing Users and Groups

Let's Explore How to Manage The Users and Groups on Your Server.

FIRST, CLICK THE System. Tab and Then Click The Users and. Groups. Button. Then, From Here, You Can Either User, MANAGE A USER, OR ADD OR MANAGE A GROUP.

Let's Create A New User Called deploy Which Would Be Used for Hosting Web Applications. To Add A User, Click CREATE A NEW UserWhich is Located AT The Top of the Users Table. This Displays The Create User. SCREEN, WHERE YOU CAN SUPPLY THE UPERNAME, PASSWORD, GROUPS AND OTHER OPTIONS. Follow These Instructions to Create The User:

1. Fill In. UserName. WITH DEPLOY.
2. SELECT Automatic. For User ID.
3. Fill In. Real Name. With a Descriptive Name Like Deployment User.
4. For Home Directory., SELECT Automatic..
5. For Shell., SELECT / bin / bash From the Dropdown List.
6. For Password., SELECT Normal Password. AND TYPE IN A PASSWORD OF YOUR CHOICE.
7. For PRIMARY GROUP., SELECT NEW GROUP WITH SAME NAME ASER.
8. For SECONDARY GROUP., SELECT sudo. From the ALL GROUPS. List and Press The -> Button to Add the Group to the in groups List.
9. Press Create. To Create This New User.

When Creating A user, You can Set Options for Password Expiry, The User's Shell, Or Whether the Are Allowed a home Directory.

Next, Let's Look At How To Install Updates to Our System.

Updating Packages.

Webmin Lets You Update All Of Your Packages Through ITS User Interface. To Update All Of Your Packages, First, Go to the Dashboard. Link and then Locate The Package Updates. Field. If there's updates Available, You'll See A Link That States The Number of Available Updates, As Shown in The Following Figure:

Click This Link and then Press Update Selected Packages. TO START THE UPDATE. You may be asked to reboot the server, Which You Can Also Do Through the Webmin Interface.

Conclusion

You Now Have a Secure, Working Instance of Webmin and You've Used The Interface to Create A user and update packages. Webmin Gives You ACCESS TO MANY THINGS You'd Normally Need to Access Through The Console, and It Organizes Them in An Intuitive Way. For example, If You Have Apache Installed, You Would Find The Configuration Tab For It Under Servers, and then. Apache..

Explore The Interface, Or Read the Official Webmin Wiki To Learn More about Managing Your System with Webmin.

There are a lot of web control panels of the server, both specialized for hosting and general purpose. Today I will do installing one of these panels - Webmin to the CentOS 7 server. In my opinion this is one of the most popular remote controlrs for the server through the browser.

Webmin is a WEB panel to administer the UNIX server. She is cross-platform, put on various UNIX distributions. I once described one of its applications in the article about on FreeBSD. With Webmin, you can perform almost all popular administrative actions on the server, such as:

• Set up network connections
• Add users
• Mount partitions
• Tune firewall
• Turn off or restart the server
• Update packages

and much more. There are modules for various software that can be managed via Webmin. For example, sambuing, or web server, MySQL server and multiple other packages. The list of modules is extensive, you can see on the official website list of third-party user modules, or in the panel itself after installing the list of official modules. Through Webmin, you can access the server console, download or download files from the server. Sometimes it happens conveniently.

I myself almost never use this panel, there is no need, you used to customize everything in the console. But I know people who are actively administered servers using Webmin. These were not very advanced admins in Linux, but nevertheless, this panel allowed them to normally manage the server without proper knowledge and skills.

I almost always use Webmin on email servers. It is convenient for me to analyze and look for something in huge mail logs using the log viewing module. Something simpler and convenient I did not come across. For example, you have a log per day per 100-300 megabytes, dozens of events are fixed every second. You have a letter ID. You can enter a letter ID to search string and see all the log lines in which it appears. It is very convenient. The usual search in such a situation is not to do. You can, of course, to gerinate the output of Cat, or something else to invent, but it is less convenient. Especially if you need to compare the values \u200b\u200bfrom different log files. You just open different logs in two browser windows and analyze.

We will proceed to install Webmin to the Sentos 7 streamlining server. The process is described on the official website in the corresponding section. There is nothing complicated. You need to add Webmin repository, and then install the package itself and dependencies.

Add repository:

# MCedit /etc/yum.Repos.d/webmin.Repo Name \u003d Webmin Distribution Neutral # BaseURL \u003d http: //download.webmin.com/download/yum mirrorlist \u003d http: //download.webmin.com/download/yum / mirrorlist enabled \u003d 1

Import GPG key:

# RPM --import http://www.webmin.com/jcameron-key.asc

Install Webmin:

# YUM Install -Y Webmin

After installation, it will automatically start. We can only add it to autoload:

# Chkconfig Webmin ON

We go to the Webmin webmine software link https://192.168.56.10:10000 , where 192.168.56.10 The IP address of the server. Be sure to specify the HTTPS protocol, without this, do not go. Enter the login and password root. The main Webmin page opens:

I will not describe all the features, you can not blame the menu on the left and see what you can configure via Webmin. I pay attention to several important points. It is the opinion that Webmin is not safe and a server can hack through it. I do not know how much these fears are justified, but just in case access to the server is better limited.

If you come from static addresses, limit access to only these addresses. Is done right there in the next setting IP Access Control. I recommend this setting. To open Webmin to the world personally, I would not be without much need.

If you want to see the panel with the Russian language, then there is no problem. It can be chosen in delay Language.. It is generally translated normally, everything is clear. But it is better, of course, get used to English, without it in system administration nowhere. But if you do not understand, you can use Russian. In the end, the Webmin is most useful for those who do not understand the servers, but you need to add something. After changing the language, it is necessary to force the brazer page for the entire interface to become Russian.

On this, everything, with the rest of the possibilities and settings you can independently understand, there is nothing difficult in webmine.

Online Linux course

If you have a desire to learn how to build and maintain highly accessible and reliable systems, I recommend to get acquainted with online course "Administrator Linux" in Otus. The course is not for beginners, for admission you need basic knowledge on networks and installing Linux to virtual. Training lasts 5 months, after which successful graduates of the course will be able to pass interviews from partners. What will give you this course:

• Knowledge of Linux architecture.
• Mastering modern methods and data analysis and data processing tools.
• The ability to select the configuration for the necessary tasks, manage processes and ensure the security of the system.
• Possession of the main working instruments of the system administrator.
• Understanding the features of deployment, settings and maintenance of networks built on the basis of Linux.
• The ability to quickly solve emerging problems and ensure a stable and uninterrupted system operation.

Check yourself on the introductory test and see more of the software program.

You must put a WIBMIN NAA Clean Debian server 8. In the current task, consider several installation options:

• using the downloaded Debian Pack
• with the help of the repository.

Decision

1. Installation We carry out using a debit package webmin., download the DEB package from the official site downloads page, or in the console, perform the command:

​[Email Protected]: / # Wget http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/webadmin/webmin_1.831_all.deb

2. Complete the command to the downloaded file:

​[Email Protected]: / # dpkg --install webmin_1.831_all.deb

The automatic installation to the / usr / share / webmin directory, authorization data for login to the web console is automatically assigned to the root user. To enter the web console, use the following link URL http: // LocalHost: 10,000 /.
Or instead of LocalHost, specify the IP address of the machine to which the installation occurs.

If when installing on Debian Webmin, it is about the absence of dependencies, set them as a team:

​[Email Protected]: / # APT-Get Install Perl Libnet-Ssleay-Perl Openssl Libauthen-Pam-Perl Libpam-Runtime Libio-Pty-Perl Apt-Show-Versions Python

We carry out the installation using Webmin repository

To install Webmin and updates, use the APT command.
1. Open and execute the /etc/apt/sources.list file in any convenient editor.

​[Email Protected]: / # Nano /etc/APT/sources.List

2. Add the following lines to the /etc/apt/sources.list file

DEB http://download.webmin.com/download/repository Sarge Contrib

3. Install the GPG key with the signature of the repository, for this execute the command

​[Email Protected]: / # CD / ROOT [Email Protected]: / # Wget http://www.webmin.com/jcameron-key.asc [Email Protected]: / # APT-KEY Add jcameron-key.asc

4. Now you need to update the APT packages.

​[Email Protected]: / # APT-Get Update

5. Install Webmin.

​[Email Protected]: / # APT-Get Install Apt-Transport-HTTPS [Email Protected]: / # APT-Get Install Webmin

After executing these Webmin commands, it must be established with all dependencies. To configure Webmin go to the web console on the following link URL

|

Webmin is a system administration tool for UNIX-like systems. This simple and convenient alternative to administrative administration via the command line can be used to manage various aspects of the system (for example, users and services) via Webmin modules. Webmin is ideal for users who prefer to support their virtual selected server on their own, but do not want to work with the command line.

This manual will demonstrate the WEBMIN and SSL tool installation process using APT-GET in Ubuntu 14.04.

Requirements

To install Webmin need root privileges. It is recommended to create a user with extended Sudo privileges (instructions can be found in), which will also be needed to enter the Webmin interface. In addition, Webmin will be able to use its server management credentials.

note: When using WebMin, the password-based authorization is meant.

Enter the server as new user (or root) via SSH using the command:

sSH user_name @ IP_adress_server

On request, specify your password.

Installing Webmin.

Before installing Webmin using APT-GET, you need to add Webmin repository to the sources.list file.

Open the Sources.List file on the virtual server in text editor (This guide is Nano):

sudo Nano /etc/APT/sources.list.

Specify your password. Then press Ctrl-W and Ctrl-V to go to the end of the file, and make the following lines:

dEB http://download.webmin.com/download/repository Sarge Contrib
DEB http://webmin.mirror.somersettechsolutions.co.uk/repository Sarge Contrib

After completing the editing, save the file by pressing Ctrl-X, and then Y.

Then add the WebMin GPG key to the APT so that the system can trust the added repository. To do this, use:

wGET -Q http://www.webmin.com/jcameron-key.asc -o- | Sudo Apt-Key Add -

Now you need to update the list of APT-GET packages:

sudo Apt-Get Update

You can start installing Webmin; To do this, run the command:

sudo Apt-Get Install Webmin

Confirm the launch of the installation.

After the installation is completed, the WebMin service will be launched automatically.

Login to Webmin.

Using a web browser, open the Webmin's authorization page; To do this, specify the external IP and port 10000. By default, Webmin supports SSL / TLS, because you need to use HTTPS to connect. So, open the following link in the browser:

https: // IP_adress_server: 10000

At this stage, the "Server's SSL Certificate Is Not Trusted" warning will appear, which indicates that the browser cannot trust the server SSL certificate. The fact is that during installing Webmin automatically generates and sets sSL certificateBut this SSL certificate was not confirmed by the Certification Center to which the server could trust. And although the computer cannot check the validity of the certificate, you can be sure of its safety.

Tell the browser that the certificate can be trusted. For example, in Chrome you need to perform the following actions:

• Click Advanced link;
• Then click the link "Proceed To IP address (Unsafe). "

Firefox need:

• Press the I Understand the Risks;
• Then click the Add Exception button ...;
• And then CONFIRM Security Exception.

At this stage, the webmin's input screen will appear.

Enter the same credentials that were used for SSH connections at the very beginning. Do not forget: This user must have sudo or root privileges.

Ready! Webmin tool is successfully installed and ready to work.

Note: The security of this user's credentials requires special attention, because thanks to its privileges, Webmin application has full access to the server.

Using Webmin.

When you first start Webmin, the System Information page will appear, which contains an overview of the system resources and other useful information. Also, this page shows all available Webmin updates.

On the left you can see the navigation menu that can be used to control the server and gain access to various Webmin modules. The navigation menu is divided into categories, and each individual category has its own set of modules. Category Webmin deserves special attention, since it contains modules to configure Webmin application, while other categories are used to perform various system administration tasks.

View the navigation menu, check out the available modules.

Creating a user (optional)

The main task of system administration (in particular in Webmin) is user management. This section will discuss the creation of a new user using the USERS AND GROUPS module.

Enter the username in username, as well as specify the remaining necessary user data. Then click Create.

After that, the user will appear on the server with the specified data.

The USERS AND GROUPS module can also be used to perform other user management tasks, such as deleting or disabling users and groups.

Install Apache (optional)

Webmin comes with lots of modules for managing packages of various software. This section will demonstrate the installation of a web server using the Apache WebServer module.

In the navigation menu, select the Un-Used Modules category, find the Apache WebServer module.

If Apache has not been installed on the server earlier, the module will report this and prompt the method of installing a web server.

After finishing apache Settings A standard web server will be launched.

After that, the Apache WebServer module will be moved to the Servers category and can be used to manage the Apache Server Settings.

Conclusion

Now that Webmin is installed and ready for operation, this tool can be used to execute the main tasks of system administration.

Tags:

Webmin is a graphic Web interface for managing the server based on UNIX such operating systems. Very comfortable thing for administration linux servers. Facilitates the life of beginners and specialists, the Linux administration time saves well. MUST HAVE !!!

Capabilities.

• Full OS control (download, processes, status, log files);
• Manage users and groups and their rights;
• Manage all servers (Apache, FTP, SSH, SAMBA);
• Setup network including Firewall;
• Backup, and much more;

We turn to the installation.

Add Webmin repository

Sudo Nano /etc/APT/sources.list.

Insert the string to the end of the file (SHIFT + CTRL + V)

DEB https://download.webmin.com/download/repository Sarge Contrib

Save (Ctrl + O) and input.

Install keys

Wget https://www.webmin.com/jcameron-key.asc Sudo Apt-Key Add Jameron-Key.Asc

We add the necessary modules

Sudo Apt-Get Install Perl Libnet-SSLEY-PERL OpenSSL Libauthen-Pam-Perl Libpam-Runtime Libio-Pty-Perl Libdigest-MD5-PERL

We update.

Sudo Apt-Get Update

We install webmin

Sudo Apt-Get Install Webmin

PROFIT !!!

Go to the browser and open Webmin. Note that the protocol Https (A window will be released with an invalid certificate, accept and add to exceptions).

Https: // Server IP address: 10000