edin.no-ip.com

Webmin and Usermin are handy administration interface for system administrator, which cover a lot of daily duty for system administration, e.g. apache, bind9, dhcpd, webalizer, cron jobs, logrotate, etc. Some people don't suggest to use Webmin or Usermin due to security concern, but I seems it as a short cut for a newbie become professional.

BTW, Debian etch no longer coming with official support of webmin/usermin package according to many reason (http://wiki.debian.org/Webmin?highlight=%28webmin%29), but the most important point is lack of package maintainer (http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=343897). So you will not find webmin and usermin under both stable, testing and even unstable.

Is the story end? Not yet! Official webmin/usermin website also provide debian package, which are most up-to-date! This mini-HOWTO will cover the required step for installing such 3rd party package into Debian etch.

Option 1: Install required packages manually

Go to Webmin/Usermin official home page and obtain the latest packages (http://www.webmin.com/):

Give a first try of install with dpkg. It will prompt you some dependence packages are missing:

So let's fix it up with apt-get:

Option 2: Using the Webmin APT repository

Add this line to your /etc/apt/sources.list:

Then run the following command to install it:

Fix rc*.d scripts

You may found that Webmin/Usermin don't shutdown correctly during reboot, and so let's fix it with update-rc.d:

Access https://example.com:10000 and https://example.com:20000, and check if both Webmin and Usermin are functioning?

Extra security

1. Remember to set auto-logout: the original Debian Webmin package come with 15min auto-logout as default setting. This is a very good idea for increase the security level.

   Go to "Webmin -> Webmin Configuration -> Authentication", active "Auto-logout after..." and set to 15min (case of Webmin), or "Webmin -> Usermin Configuration -> Authentication", active "Auto-logout after..." and set to 15min (case of Usermin).

2. Remember to set IP access control: as like as the case of above, original Debian Webmin package come with only 127.0.0.1 (localhost) restricted access to Webmin as default setting.

   Go to "Webmin -> Webmin Configuration -> IP Access Control", click "Only allow from listed addresses", set to 127.0.0.1 and 192.168.0.0/16 (optional, you should fill in your LAN network) (case of Webmin), or "Webmin -> Usermin Configuration -> IP Access Control", click "Only allow from listed addresses", set to 127.0.0.1 and 192.168.0.0/16 (case of Usermin).