Installing Webmin on Debian
If you are using the DEB version of webmin, first download the file and then run the command :
dpkg –install webmin_1.480_all.deb
The install will be done automatically to /usr/share/webmin, the administration username set to root and the password to your current root password.
You should now be able to login to Webmin at the URL http://localhost:10000/. Or if accessing it remotely, replace localhost with your system’s IP address.
If Debian complains about missing dependencies, you can install them with the command :
apt-get install perl libnet-ssleay-perl openssl libauthen-pam-perl libpam-runtime libio-pty-perl libmd5-perl
If you are installing on Ubuntu and the apt-get command reports that some of the packages cannot be found, edit /etc/apt/sources.list and make sure the lines ending with universe are not commented out.
Some Debian-based distributions (Ubuntu in particular) don’t allow logins by the root user by default.
However, the user created at system installation time can use sudo to switch to root. Webmin will allow any user who has this sudo capability to login with full root privileges.
If you want to connect from a remote server and your system has a firewall installed, see this page for instructions on how to open up port 10000.
In Usermin’s MySQL Database module, how can I restrict the databases that each user can see and use?
By default the module will list all of the databases on your system on the main page, even if some are not actually usable by the logged-in user. To change this, follow these steps :
Login to Webmin on the same server, and enter the Usermin Configuration module.
Click on Usermin Module Configuration.
Click on MySQL Database in the list.
In the Database access control list field, remove the existing *: * line and enter one line per user, containing the username, a colon and
list of databases he is allowed to use. For example, you could enter :
jcameron: database1
fred: database2 database3
joe: *
A * in the database column means all databases, while a * in the username column means any user not listed so far.
Hit the Save button to activate the restrictions.
In Usermin’s Read Mail module, how can I set users’ From addresses when my server hosts multiple virtual domains?
By default, when a user composed email the From field contains username@systemhostname. This can be changed by following these steps :
Login to Webmin on the same server, and enter the Usermin Configuration module.
Click on Usermin Module Configuration.
Click on Read Mail.
In the Default hostname for From: addresses field, enter the domain or hostname that you want to appear after the @ in users’ From addresses.
If you want to stop users from changing their From address (to prevent mail forging), set the Allow editing of From: address option to No.
If you have multiple virtual domains and want different users to have different domains in their From addresses, you will need to set the
From: address mapping file to the name of a file that maps real email addresses to virtual domain email addresses.
This must be a text file, with each line containing :
The username part of each line must be the user’s Usermin login, and the fromaddress is the new From address to assign to that user. The
username can also be the user’s full email address as it currently appears, such as joe@yourserver.com.
Follow these steps :
In the Perl Modules module of Webmin, install
In the PAM Authentication module, add a new PAM service called webmin that uses Unix authentication.
In the Webmin Users module, create a new user called something like unixer, with access to the modules that you want all your Unix users to have access to.
In each of the modules unixer has access to, change the module access control to give your users rights only to their own accounts. For example, in the Change Passwords module you should select Only this user for the Users whose passwords can be changed so that Unix users logging in can only change their own passwords.
Click on Configure Unix user authentication below the list of Webmin users and choose Allow any Unix user to login with permissions of user unixer.
Any Unix user should now be able to login to Webmin on your system.
Again, if your system does not use PAM the first two steps can be skipped, and Webmin will read /etc/passwd or /etc/shadow file directly to authenticate users.
Another alternative to doing all this is to install Usermin, which allows all Unix users to login and access only settings belonging to them, using a similar interface to Webmin.
