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This article introduces the relevant knowledge of "the installation and use of Webmin". Many people will encounter such a dilemma in the operation of actual cases, so let the editor lead you to learn how to deal with these situations. I hope you can read it carefully and be able to achieve something!

One of the challenges in moving from the management of the Windows environment to the management of the Linux environment is that you need to learn to leverage new tools. As an administrator, you want to understand the details of the operating system to make the most of it. However, when you are still in the learning stage, you need to complete the specific work.

To speed up your progress with Linux, we will install a program called Webmin. As Webmin.com said, "Webmin is a Web-based Unix system management interface." With any browser that supports tables and forms (and the Java required by the File Manager module), you can set up user accounts, Apache, DNS, file sharing, and so on. Webmin includes a simple Web server and many CGI programs that can modify system files directly, such as / etc/inetd.conf and / etc/passwd. The Web server and all CGI programs are written in Perl 5 without using any non-standard Perl modules. "

Webmin can run on virtually all Unix-like platforms, including Linux, AIX, HPUX, Solaris, OS X, and so on. It has a Web front end, which can complete many management tasks in Linux. It can be run locally or remotely in any graphical browser. Webmin uses SSL to secure and prevent snooping. When you learn Linux management, Webmin will save you a lot of time. Webmin can also help you with tedious tasks that can't be automated yet. Webmin is extensible. The author provides a development wizard, and some third-party modules have emerged. You can also design your own modules so that Webmin can always be adapted to your needs.

Install Webmin

The first step in using Webmin is to install. Webmin has been shipped with a few distributions, but it is easy to download from the Webmin website.

At the time of this writing, the latest version of Webmin is 1.90. The correct installation method varies depending on the Linux distribution you are using. If you are using Red Hat Linux or one of the UnitedLinux distributions (SuSE, Turbo, Connectiva, or Caldear), the easiest thing to do is to use the RPM installation method. If you are using another distribution, you need to read the documentation for your distribution and the Webmin installation instructions to choose the best installation method. Below we assume that the installation is done in RPM mode.

First check to see if Webmin is installed on your system. Enter in the text terminal:

Rpm-Q webmin

If your system already has Webmin installed, you will get its version number:

Webmin-1.090-1

Otherwise, you will see a prompt that Webmin is not installed:

Package webmin is not installed

Install packages most software packages are installed on Linux as simple as installing Webmin in this article. To learn more about the installation and unloading of software packages, and even about compiling applications from source code, see part 9 of this series.

Even if Webmin is installed, its version may be lower than the latest version currently available. In this case, you can upgrade or reinstall it using the following command:

Rpm-Uvh webmin-1.090-1.noarch.rpm

A progress bar marked # is output during a lengthy update.

RPM noarch you will notice that Webmin is listed as a "noarch" package. Because RPM are binary files, they are usually compiled for specific architectures, such as i386 or ppc. Installing packages on the wrong architecture can lead to wrong results. Because Webmin is written in Perl, and Perl is architecture-independent, Webmin is identified as "noarch".

When Webmin is installed, it is enabled by default. However, this installation does not enable SSL. SSL requires a Perl module called Net::SSLeay to be installed. Without this module, Webmin is safe only if it is run from the local console. The safe use of Webmin will be briefly introduced at the end of this article.

Practical Extraction and Reporting Language (Perl) Perl is a multi-platform interpretive programming language that appeared in 1987. It can be used on a variety of platforms, including Windows, with mature scripting capabilities. The strength of Perl lies in text processing, which is widely used in Web CGI programming. Perl can be extended by adding modules that are actually libraries of functions and are also written in Perl. Most modules, including in fact Perl itself, are freely available under the license of The Artistic License.

Use Webmin

Use your favorite Web browser to access Webmin. The two tools, the file browser and the telnet/ssh client, are based on applet and need to have Java Runtime Environment installed on your browser. These two tools will bring convenience, but they are not indispensable. There are no special requirements for all other modules.

Point your browser to port 10000 of the system to start using Webmin. In the browser of the local system, you should enter http://localhost.localdomain:10000/. The first thing you will see is a login interface.

Users of Webmin are separate from users of the operating system. This allows you to set up administrative users through Webmin without going through the regular Unix authentication mechanism. However, if you want certain users to be able to use Webmin, you can add them to the list of Webmin users and let Webmin authenticate them through the Unix tool instead of using Wemin's internal authentication mechanism. You can control each user's access to the Webmin module. For example, Helpdesk employees can only use the password function, while other employees can access all modules.

After the installation is complete, the root user is automatically created with the root password of the system. Webmin logs based on logins, so that in a multi-administrator environment, it may be more appropriate to create a group of administrators with root privileges and create users separately for everyone using the system. You must log in as root for the first time.

Webmin form

The first screen you see will be Webmin Configuration Section. Here you can configure Webmin users, configure modules, and view activity logs. The icon at the top can be switched between different module forms in Webmin. All modules are configurable, and you can reorganize them according to your needs.

Figure 1. Webmin configuration screen

Users can also use Webmin to configure an optional Usermin package, which provides a Web-based tool that allows users to change passwords, manage system mail, and other tasks. System configuration files cannot be accessed using Usermin. Both Usermin and Webmin will be free products.

System forms can be used for overall configuration of the operating system. Here, you can configure the usual boot behavior of file systems, users, groups, and systems. You can control the services running on the system and determine whether they start automatically by selecting the Bootup and Shutdown icons. However, the specific configuration of those services is done by Servers forms. Pay particular attention to the "Software Package" tool, which makes it easy to view the packages already installed on your system, as well as the interface to the distribution upgrade library and rpmfind.net, a common RPM library on Internet.

Servers forms can be configured for individual services that you may be running on the system. BIND and DHCP tools are very convenient. The Samba tool is also easy to use to configure file and printer sharing for Windows and other clients. The SMTP server Sendmail is known for its extremely complex configuration files. The Webmin Sendmail tool also solves this problem for you.

Figure 2. Webmin server screen

Networking forms provide tools that can be used to configure network hardware and perform complex network controls, such as firewalls. All tools have to modify the standard configuration file, so anything you do in Webmin can be done by the corresponding console tool.

Hardware forms are used to configure physical devices, mainly printers and storage devices. Of particular concern is the logical Volume Management (Logical Volume Management,LVM) tool, which helps you visually manage dynamic volumes on your Linux system.

The tools in Cluster forms are used to manage clustered systems. A cluster here refers to a set of related systems whose configuration needs to be synchronized. The system can synchronize the configuration of users, groups, software packages and so on during system fault detection. These tools can help you build hot error recovery systems and other systems that require synchronization. Clustering is an advanced topic, and you may need to install some packages that do not come with your Linux distribution.

There are a variety of tools in Others forms that you may find useful. " The "SSH/Telnet Login" and "File Manager" tools require applet support and can only be run after JRE is installed on your browser. " The Perl Modules "tool allows you to keep up with the development of the Perl module, which connects directly to CPAN on Internet." The File Manager "tool provides a browser-like view of the server's file system, and if you are working remotely, you can move and copy files without passing through your workstation's memory." The "SSH/Telnet Login" tool is a remote shell console that allows you to access the console through a browser.

Concluding remarks

Webmin is a browser-based management application written in Perl. Webmin is extensible and can be used in other Unix-like operating systems in addition to Linux. After the installation is complete, you can enter Webmin through a specific port, usually 10000, in a local or remote browser. It has a pointing and clicking interface to complete a variety of Linux management tasks, including user management, network firewall and network device configuration.

Webmin is free to install and use, and it is a good tool for managing the Linux environment, if you used Windows's graphical management tool before. The Webmin tool is the front end of the console-based tool, so the effect of using these two tools for configuration is consistent, and both of them can reliably complete administrative tasks.

This is the end of the content of "installation and use of Webmin". Thank you for your reading. If you want to know more about the industry, you can follow the website, the editor will output more high-quality practical articles for you!

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