How many times have you thought of purchasing a proprietary Control Panel to help you with day to day administration? If you already have one, wouldn’t it be nice if your time was spent more on configuring/securing core services of your server; rather than fixing features/functionalities of the panel!
Webmin makes life easier for system administrators, webhosts and website owners, with absolutely no messing around with your server configs. The icing on the cake is that Webmin is a FREE, open-source web-based interface for system administration, that works on almost all Linux/Unix systems(including FreeBSD).
If you are managing a few websites/hosting accounts, you already know the hardships of creating an additional e-mail account for a client in the odd hours. Of course there are panels that offer much more in terms of features and user friendliness, but webmin allows you to be flexible from a host’s point of view. Say, if you don’t like sendmail, you could always choose Qmail, or Postfix! That’s not all, you could live with any other mail-server running on your server, and still use all the other features of Webmin, leaving alone the mail-server.
Okay, so how is it crafted, and how does it work?
The design approach for the tool is purely modular. It means that almost all functionality of the panel comes in the form of modules that can be added and removed at will. Adding modules is quick, easy and can be done from within the panel.
Webmin comprises of a web-server and CGI scripts written in Perl(version 5), using various standard Perl modules. And if you would like to tweak them a bit; you are more than welcome to do so! However, I wouldn’t suggest playing with them on a production server.
Almost all panels available in the market would alter the configuration of your server, the moment you install it onto your system. Webmin basically parses the configuration files of various services, giving respect to file order, comments and directives. This means that if you have been manually configuring your system/sever until now, any existing settings would still be recognized/retained by Webmin. What it does is, it reads the standard configuration files of various services on your server and updates them directly, instead of using its own separate database(unlike most panels available in the market). This means that you can freely mix Webmin and manual configuration. It would also mean that as long as you do not use functionality say DNS, none of its configurations would be affected.
Virtualmin
Virtualmin, which is a Webmin module for managing multiple virtual-hosts through a single interface(like Plesk or Cpanel), supports the creation and management of Apache virtual hosts, BIND DNS domains, MySQL databases, mailboxes and aliases.
Virtualmin can also create Webmin users for each virtual server. These users can be restricted to managing their respective domain’s, its files and mailboxes – all from within the web interface. The freely downloadable version of Virtualmin is “Virtualmin GPL”, which as the name suggests, is licensed under the GPL. A professional version of this tool is also available, which houses a lot more features and is bundled with support.
If you would like to see Webmin in action, let me direct you to a few snapshots and demo of the tool, that could help you make up your mind to try this decade old tool.
http://webmin.com/demo.html
Note: You might have to try the “http” link, and will have to make sure you are allowed access to port 10000(in your local firewall/router).
So in a nut-shell, Webmin is a tool that suits all categories. Be it a novice who knows just basic Unix/Linux, or an advanced host who wants his freedom, flexibility, and power of delegation(that too free!).
Let me conclude by listing the strengths of the tool and a promise to return back with more..(Installation of Webmin, and a few tips/steps to get started).
| Feature/specification | Webmin | Proprietary panels |
| Open Source | Yes | No |
| Free of cost | Yes | No |
| User friendly | Yes | Yes |
| Feature rich | Yes | No |
| Gentle on existing configurations | Yes | Not all |
| Modular design | Yes | Not all |
| High level of flexibility | Yes | No |
| Ability to modify the tool to great extent | Yes | No |