How to Install Webmin on Ubuntu 22.04 and How to Use it

Introduction

Are you looking for a detailed tutorial on how to install Webmin on Ubuntu 22.04? You're in the right place! Webmin is a free and open-source web-based control panel that allows you to manage your Linux server from the browser. The web interface Webmin provides is a flexible modern dashboard with dozens of options to manage the internal configurations of your Linux server, such as user accounts, disk quotas, DNS, package settings, services, web servers, and much more. If you use a LAMP stack on your server, you can use Webmin to configure your Apache web server, MySQL server, PHP applications, as well as other technologies such as PostgreSQL database servers and Python. Webmin can be used to manage your server remotely from any browser. In this tutorial, we'll install Webmin on an Ubuntu 22.04 server, and use it to perform basic system administration tasks such as monitoring the system, adding new users with different permissions, installing, updating and upgrading packages, as well as running software on your server, in addition to executing commands.

Prerequisites

• An Ubuntu 22.04 server with root access or a sudo user. You can get one from our website, and you can follow our Connecting to your VPS with SSH and improving security guide to connect to your server via SSH and set up a sudo user.

Step 1: Updating the Package Cache

Start by updating the packages in the package manager cache to the latest available versions using the following command:

sudo apt update

Step 2: Install Webmin on Ubuntu 22.04

To install the Webmin control panel on Ubuntu 22.04, you'll need to add the Webmin repository that will enable you to install the Webmin packages and update them with apt. To make sure this new repository is trusted and that it is indeed the one Webmin developers provide, you'll download a PGP signature—a digital signature that is used to verify packages that are downloaded from the Internet. Use the following command to get the PGP key provided by the Webmin developers to verify the package's authenticity, and then use the gpg command line tool to convert it to a file that apt can use:

wget -qO- https://download.webmin.com/jcameron-key.asc | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/webmin.gpg

Here, you use the wget tool to get Webmin’s PGP key, and then you pass the output to the gpg command line tool to unpack the input and save it to the /usr/share/keyrings/ path. You can now add the Webmin repository with this key. Open the /etc/apt/sources.list file:

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

Add the Webmin repository at the end of the file:

deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/webmin.gpg] http://download.webmin.com/download/repository sarge contrib

Exit the file with CTRL+X, then press Y and ENTER to save the changes. Update your package index with the newly added Webmin repository:

sudo apt update

Once the update finishes, you can install Webmin using the following command:

sudo apt install webmin

Once the installation finishes, check that the webmin service is running properly using the following command:

sudo systemctl status webmin

You should receive an output similar to the following:

● webmin.service - Webmin server daemon
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/webmin.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Sun 2022-08-28 17:23:29 UTC; 53s ago
    Process: 7432 ExecStart=/usr/share/webmin/miniserv.pl /etc/webmin/miniserv.conf (code=ex>
   Main PID: 7433 (miniserv.pl)
      Tasks: 1 (limit: 19072)
     Memory: 28.8M
        CPU: 638ms
     CGroup: /system.slice/webmin.service
             └─7433 /usr/bin/perl /usr/share/webmin/miniserv.pl /etc/webmin/miniserv.conf

Aug 28 17:23:27 lamptest systemd[1]: Starting Webmin server daemon...
Aug 28 17:23:27 lamptest perl[7432]: pam_unix(webmin:auth): authentication failure; logname=>
Aug 28 17:23:29 lamptest webmin[7432]: Webmin starting
Aug 28 17:23:29 lamptest systemd[1]: Started Webmin server daemon.

Note: Webmin is accessible via TCP port 10000. If you have a firewall enabled on your system, you need to allow Webmin's port through the firewall, so that it can be accessed remotely:

sudo ufw allow 10000

Warning: You should be extremely careful with your security practices. It is best to allow only a few trusted IP addresses or IP ranges to access your Webmin control panel. Additionally, make sure to always assign strong passwords for your Unix users, and restrict their permissions. Webmin is a powerful tool, and anyone who gains access to it will have total control over your system. With the Webmin package installed, use your browser to visit the following URL, replacing your_ip_address_or_domain with your server's IP address or domain name:

https://your_ip_address_or_domain:10000

If you haven't set up an SSL certificate from a Certificate Authority like Let's Encrypt, you will receive a "Not Secure" or "Connection is not private" error depending on your browser. This informs you that the connection to your server is not secure. This error message is normal because Webmin is encrypted and secured with a self-signed certificate, and the browser does not recognize it since your server is not one of its known certificate authorities. Click the Advanced button or More information depending on the browser, and choose to proceed. The following is an example of the error in the Google Chrome browser: Once you proceed, you'll receive a login page similar to the following: Login using the Unix username and password you've set up on the server. Or you can use your server's root account. You'll be taken to the Webmin dashboard, which looks like so: In this dashboard, you have system information, such as CPU, memory, and disk usage. Additionally, you have a menu with a list of options on the left side of the screen, which you can use to control your system's functionalities, such as system tools, networking, hardware, etc.

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Step 3: Using Webmin to Perform Basic Sysadmin Tasks

Webmin has many modules you can use to control and configure your system. In this step you'll learn about a few of these modules and how to use them. You'll use Webmin to install and update packages, manage system users and groups, and manage Webmin users.

Installing Packages

To install a software package using