Install Webmin to manage your hosting account

A hosting control panel is a tool that allows you to manage all aspects of a hosting service.
It allows you to do most of the complex system admin processes in just a few clicks from the admin interface.
You can even do advanced tasks such as server migrations, web server switching etc. in just a few clicks.
Earlier this was done manually and took a huge amount of time to set it all up where as it is just a matter of few minutes now.

Easily manageable user interface

A control panel should provide an easily manageable user interface so that users can manage all aspects of their hosting easily.

Simplicity of the interface is very important, otherwise end users may get confused. Control panels should make system admin tasks simple so that even non-technical people can perform the tasks with the interface. cPanel is our preferred control panel option.

Platform independence

Most of the control panels available online are built for Linux based servers.

If the website you built is coded in asp.net which works well with Windows systems, you need to choose a control panel that works in Windows servers.

As far as platform independence is concerned, Plesk is the most popular option. It works in Debian and RPM based Linux servers and also in Windows servers.

Support and Forums

Once a control panel is installed on a server, management of the services is done by the control panel itself and it is very important to have great support in case there are any issues.

Most the proprietary control panels offer support, but for the free panels, it is important to have an active forum where most of the topics related bugs and other errors are discussed since no support is available for 90% of the free open source panels.

Features and Software support

It is essential that the control panel supports any required software or features you need to have installed on the server.

For example, Nginx with PHP-FPM web server setup doesn’t work well with cPanel. So you need to take into account the applications you are using are compatible with the control panel itself.

Cost effectiveness

If you cannot afford to pay for a control panel go for a free one.

The most popular option is Virtualmin/Webmin.

If you do have a budget, go with a paid control panel which suits your needs and offers good tech support in case you ever need any help. The best options would be cPanel, Plesk and DirectAdmin.

Stability and Security updates

Stability and security of the server is a very important factor that will affect your business if not maintained properly.

It is very important that the server and the control panel is stable and won’t cause unnecessary downtime to the users.

Also considering the fact that there are hackers and attackers everywhere, it is critical to update the patches and bugs and keep the server secure.

When choosing a control panel, make sure the panel is stable and security updates are available regularly.

These are the essential points to consider when you choose a control panel.

Webmin is one of the best web-based interfaces for system administration for any Unix-like system. It’s completely free and open-source. With Webmin, you can configure services like Apache, PHP, DNS, file sharing, setup user accounts and much more, just by using your web browser. You don’t have to manually edit any Unix configuration files like /etc/password, you can use Webmin to do that. Webmin lets you manage a system from the console or remotely. Lots of servers use Webmin as it’s easy to use even for beginners. If you already know how to use another control panel like cPanel or Ajenti, getting used to Webmin will be much easier for you.

 

Install Webmin on CentOS/Fedora

You can download Webmin in several package formats from Webmin’s official website. We need the RPM package to install Webmin on CentOS

 

Step 1 – Before proceeding with Webmin’s installation, install the following dependencies:

 

yum -y install perl perl-Net-SSLeay openssl perl-IO-Tty

 

Step 2 – Find the latest stable Webmin release and install it using the following command:

 

rpm -Uvh http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/webadmin/webmin/1.791/webmin-1.791-1.noarch.rpm

 

The installation is done automatically. The administration username is ‘root‘ and its password is your current ‘root‘ password.

You can also create a repository for installing Webmin. Doing it this way you will always have the latest automatic updates via repository.

Step 1 – Create a ‘/etc/yum.repos.d/webmin.repo‘ file:

 

nano /etc/yum.repos.d/webmin.repo

 

Put the following lines:

[Webmin]
name=Webmin Distribution Neutral
#baseurl=http://download.webmin.com/download/yum
mirrorlist=http://download.webmin.com/download/yum/mirrorlist
enabled=1

 

Step 2 – Download and install the GPG key for the package:

wget http://www.webmin.com/jcameron-key.asc
rpm --import jcameron-key.asc

 

Step 3 – You can now install Webmin by executing:

yum install Webmin

 

If you want to change your Webmin password, use the following command:

 

/usr/libexec/webmin/changepass.pl /etc/webmin root NEWPASSWORD

 

Where ‘NEWPASSWORD‘ will be your new Webmin password.

How To Access Webmin

Webmin by default is listening on port 10000 on all Linux distributions. Open a web browser and point it to https://YOURDOMAIN.COM:10000 , enter ‘root‘ as username and your root password and you are ready to go.