Table Of ContentTable of Contents
Chapter 1: Step by Step Install Guide.
Chapter 2: Post Installation Configuration
Chapter 3: Configuring your server with Webmin.
Chapter 4: Virtualmin Part 1
Chapter 5: Virtualmin Part 2
Chapter 6: Virtualmin Part 3
Chapter 7. Usermin
Chapter 8. Summary
Chapter 9. Where to go from here?
Webmin & Virtualmin
The Best Open-Source Alternative to
Cpanel
(Practical Guide Series Book #1)
Adrian Ling Kong Heng
Copyright © 2014
www.ilovevirtualmin.com
Copyright 2014 © Adrian Ling Kong Heng. All rights reserved.
No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any
information storage or retrieval system without prior written permission from the
copyright owner and the publisher.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to God who enabled me to write this book, and to whom I owe my
very existence.
Special thanks to my beautiful wife and my 2 wonderful kids for supporting me
and giving me the time and space to write.
And of course, this book would not have been possible without these two great
men who created it - Jamie Cameron & Joe Cooper in the late 2005 – and who
are still actively involved in maintaining and enhancing it.
Today, Webmin/Virtualmin is one of the world's most popular web-based
Unix/Linux server administration tool, with more than 3 million downloads
every year!
Disclaimer and Terms of Use Agreement
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Overview: Webmin, VirtualMin and UserMin.
If you have a website or are managing a website or a server, you're probably
familiar with Control Panels such as WHM/CPanel, Plesk, DirectAdmin, etc.
These commercial control panels do a great job in simplifying server
administration and allows anyone with reasonable skills to “manage” a server
without having to know the arcane art of Unix commands.
While these commercial control panels are great, they are also rather “pricey” -
for example, a Cpanel license for a VPS server is around $15/mth. In
comparison, the monthly fee for a 1GB RAM VPS server is between $10-$25
per mth, depending on the server specs and hosting company.
If paying a hefty monthly licensing fee is not your “cup of tea”, you should
definitely consider Webmin/Virtualmin which is a great Open Source
alternative. It is robust, stable and being actively maintained. There are no on-
going fee or even one-time fee. There is an option to purchase the paid
Professional Version which comes with support of course, but it's purely
optional.
While the interface may not be as “slick” or “polished” as its commercial
counterparts, it is nevertheless, a very powerful and full-featured control panel
that allows you to control nearly every aspect of your server from the web-
browser.
This chapter will provide a brief overview of Webmin/Virtualmin and help you
understand some of the different terminologies used in Virtualmin which is quite
different if you're used to Cpanel.
But first, let's look at why I believe Webmin/Virtualmin is an excellent
alternative to Cpanel.
The first and perhaps the most important reason is that it is Open-Source and it is
very mature, stable and bug free.
The other reasons are:
It is robust, stable and secure. It is used by thousands of servers around
the world, both in commercial and non-commercial environment.
It is being actively maintained – critical bug fixes and security patches
are released in a timely manner. The first version of Webmin (0.1) was
released on 5th October 1997. The current version (as of this writing is
1.710) was released on 29 September 2014.
It makes your life as a System Administrator so much easier because it
enables one to manage almost all aspects of the server via the web-
browser. This important because you can literally manage your server
from anywhere if you have access to a Web-browser.
What are the differences between Webmin and Virtualmin?
Briefly, you can think of Webmin as the main core set of scripts that allows you
to manage a server from the web-browser. Each function in Webmin is packaged
as a 'module' – for example, you have a module to control the Apache web-
server, a module to manage the DNS server, a module to add/delete/edit users,
etc.
Virtualmin is actually another module within Webmin, albeit a “huge” and
“complex module”. Think of it as a “mega module” that uses many of Webmin's
individual modules to accomplish a complex task and simplify the process for
you.
For example, to create a Website, you need to:
create a virtual server (a hosting domain, e.g. “ilovevirtualmin.com”)
create the DNS zone and edit the appropriate dns/host entries
create the email address/mailbox
create a database, user-accounts and assign privileges
etc.
It's a long, multi-step process using Webmin to create a virtual server (hosting
account)
With Virtualmin, all these steps are boiled down into a few clicks – enter the
domain name, a username and password, select a Server-Template & Account
Type and click “Create”. And it does all those stuff in the background for you.
Powerful stuff!
Webmin
Webmin is essentially a collection of powerful Perl scripts that provides an
intuitive browser-based interface for the system administrator to manage almost
every aspect of the Unix/Linux server. It consists of a simple web server, and a
number of CGI programs which directly update system files like etcpasswd,
etcpostfix/main.cf, etc.
Virtualmin
Virtualmin is a module that “sits on top” of Webmin – it provides an intuitive
interface web-based interface uses Webmin's multiple modules to accomplish a
certain task, such as creating a new hosting account (virtual server) with just a
few simple mouse clicks.
Usermin
Prior to the development of Virtualmin, there is another control-panel called
“Usermin” that allows the virtual-server owner (hosting account owner) to
manage his/her own account. But now, it is essentially used as a webmail client
for read/access the webmail.
Note: The entire Webmin/Virtual software package is written in Perl 5, using
only the standard Perl modules & libraries.
Some terminology to remember:
Server: the actual physical server (or VPS) running
Webmin/Virtualmin
root: the “super-user” (super admin) of the server.
Virtual Server: the individual hosting accounts (websites) on the
Server. In Cpanel lingo, a “Virtual Server” is similar to a “Hosting
Account”.
Sub-Server: It is similar to the “Addon Domains” in Cpanel.
Basically, it's another “domain” that is hosted within the Virtual
Server.
For example, if the Virtual Server domain is
“ilovevirtualmin.com”; I can create a “sub-server” (e.g.
domain 'adrianling.com') that resides in a subfolder within
the “ilovevirtualmin.com” folder. If this sounds confusing to
you right now, don't worry, it will be crystal clear as you
read on. We will go through the actual steps of creating a
Virtual Server, and Sub-Server in the later chapters.
Throughout the book, if you see just the term “Virtualmin” - it includes
“Webmin” as well since Virtualmin cannot exist without Webmin (Virtualmin
runs on top of Webmin). So, instead of using the term Webmin/Virtualmin
which is rather clunky, we will just use “Virtualmin” to denote both software.
For WHM/Cpanel Users
If you are familiar with the WHM/Cpanel, this analogy may give you a clearer
picture:
You could say that “Webmin” is the “WHM” equivalent – it allows the
administrator to manage the Server. The administrator uses WHM to manage the
server and create hosting accounts. The “account owners” uses “Cpanel” to
manage his/her own hosting account.
In contrast, the Administrator will use Webmin to manage the Server, and uses
Virtualmin to create hosting accounts (as well as manage certain aspects of the
server related to virtual hosting).
And, the account-owners would also use a “limited” version of Virtualmin to
manage his/her own hosting accounts. The difference here is that the
functionalities within the user's “Virtualmin” is limited, i.e. the account owner
does not have access to all the functions that are available to you as the Server
administrator.
How is this book Organized? There are essentially 4 sections:
