ServerBuddies Support Blog

Running Webmin Under Apache

Webmin includes a dedicated web server called miniserv.pl that is designed to run Webmin. It provides a number of additional security features, plus performance enhancements like configurable caching of Webmin libraries. Running Webmin under another web server is not recommended, but it is possible if necessary. There is no performance or security benefit to running Webmin under Apache (or any other web server).

To use Apache instead of miniserv.pl, follow these steps:

Create a new Apache virtual server with the document set to the directory where you installed Webmin, using a directive like DocumentRoot? /usr/local/webmin-1.330.

Configure Apache to treat all files with the .cgi extension as CGI programs, with the AddHandler? cgi-script .cgi directive.

Add index.cgi to the DirectoryIndex? directive.

Webmin CGI programs have their config directory passed to them in the WEBMIN_CONFIG, WEBMIN_VAR and MINISERV_CONFIG environment variables. For Apache to do this, you need to add the directives

Create a new section for the root directory, like

Add the directive Options ExecCGI? to the new section.

Password-protect the virtual server by putting directives like AuthName? Webmin AuthType? basic AuthUserFile? /etc/webmin/htusers require valid-user Inside the section. The file /etc/webmin/htusers must contains users who match up with those in /etc/webmin/webmin.acl.

Make all the Webmin programs owned by root and setuid with the commands

Add the -U flag to the perl line in all the Webmin scripts. This can be easily done with the following command run from the webmin-1.330 directory

This assumes that Perl is installed as /usr/bin/perl on your system.

Configure Webmin to use the ‘Default Webmin Theme’, as Apache cannot support Webmin’s theming system.

Make sure that the setuid scripts cannot be run by other users on your system, by setting the permissions on /usr/local/webmin-1.330 to 700 and changing its ownership to the user your webserver runs as. Otherwise any user would be able to execute any command as root by running some of the scripts.

You should now be able to start Apache and login to Webmin at whatever URL your Apache server is running on. Note that the Webmin Users and Webmin Configuration modules will not work, as they configure miniserv.pl and cannot deal with Apache.
Some versions of Perl refuse to run in setuid mode, and fail with an error like can’t do setuid. The solution is to install the special suidperl program and edit the Webmin CGI scripts to use it instead.

In Webmin versions 0.965 and above, it is possible to run Webmin under Apache in a subdirectory rather than at the top level of a virtual server. This means that Webmin could be accessed at a URL like http://www.yourdomain.com/webmin/ . The

steps to take to set this up are :

Create a new Alias that maps some URL path like /webmin to the directory where Webmin is installed, such as /usr/local/webmin-1.330.

In the directory section, configure Apache to treat all files with the .cgi extension as CGI programs, with the AddHandler? cgi-script .cgi directive.

Add the directives DirectoryIndex? index.cgi and Options ExecCGI? to the directory section.

Webmin CGI programs have their config directory passed to them in the WEBMIN_CONFIG, WEBMIN_VAR and MINISERV_CONFIG environment variables. For Apache to do this, you need to add the directives

Password-protect the virtual server by putting directives like AuthName? Webmin

Make all the Webmin programs owned by root and setuid with the commands

Add the -U flag to the perl line in all the Webmin scripts. This can be easily done with the following command run from the webmin-1.330 directory

Configure Webmin to use the ‘Default Webmin Theme’, as Apache cannot support Webmin’s theming system.

Make sure that the setuid scripts cannot be run by other users on your system, by setting the permissions on /usr/local/webmin-1.330 to 700 and changing its ownership to the user your webserver runs as. Otherwise any user would be able to execute any command as root by running some of the scripts.

Running Webmin from inetd?

The steps you need to follow are:

Stop webmin with the command

Add the line

Remove the line

Edit /etc/services and add a line like :

Edit /etc/inetd.conf and add a line like :

If you have installed webmin somewhere else, you will have to change the /usr/libexec/webmin part of the path above.

Restart inetd to make the changes take effect.

You should now be able to access webmin on port 10000 as normal.

Using the Bootup and Shutdown module, make sure that inetd is configured to start at boot time, and that webmin is not.