In this article I will go over webmin, a truly beautiful web-based GUI Ubuntu manager. This management software runs as a web server on default port 100000 and presents a clean, professional look with responsive layout allowing for easy use on mobile devices. I have it installed and running on Ubuntu Server Core.
I like the idea of running a GUI based manager for Ubuntu Server for quick and easy management of SAMBA shared and other services like DHCP and DNS. Webmin also offers an option for manager server clusters with usermin. Usermin allows you to manage multiple server clusters from one master machine.
With a clean and feature-rich and responsive web based user interface, it makes managing machines super easy, almost too easy! Of course like any Debain based platform, you need to make some changes or install additional packages with SSH but I like this as it keeps my CLI knowledge up to date.
Some key features that stood out for me was
- Easy Interface Managment
- Easily create and edit SAMBA shares
- Create and configure software RAID
- The easy access to web based
- CLI without the need of SSH
- Create and manage server clusters
- View realtime system information such as CPU usage, Disk Usage, Memory usage etc
- Create and manage IPTables
- Easily manage and auto backup filesystems
- Easily create and manage CRON jobsv
- Manage BIND for DNS records
- Easy Log Managment
- Create and Manage Services with Systemd
- Install and Configure Apache
Installing is simple – Get the latest release directly from webmin. There is also a installation guide available on their website.
http://www.webmin.com/download.htmlsudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgradecd ~wget http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/webadmin/webmin_1.941_all.debWith version 1.941 being the latest version at the time of this article. Replace this URL with the latest version from the above link before downloading.
sudo dpkg --install webmin_1.941_all.de
sudo apt-get install perl libnet-ssleay-perl openssl libauthen-pam-perl libpam-runtime libio-pty-perl apt-show-versions pythonIf you run into dependency issues then run
sudo apt-get install --fix-missingBelow are some screenshots of what you can expect to find when running webmin.
Webmin Dashboard 
Webmin Main Login 
BIND Configuration – The BEST! 
More BIND – DNS Zones etc. 
DHCP Configuration 
IPTables – Firewall Configuration 
Network Configuration – Interface Naming and Configuration 
Software RAID Configuration 
SAMBA Managment 
Easily Create Scheduled Backups 
Create and Modify CRON jobs 
Create and Manage Service with Systemd
