Manage and operate Ubuntu by remote administration via Web
Today we're going to talk once again about an old known and wide topic: remote administration. Which, fortunately, is well-developed for GNU/Linux. Though there are several ways to achieving the remote administration on a Ubuntu running computer, such as Secure Shell (SSH) or remote desktop softwares (VINO or VNC, FreeNX), we're really into Webmin, a remote administration software based on the world wide Web, and thats what we are going to talk in this post about. But before starting we'll need to make use of two more tools, that you may already know from our site: site: wikipedia.org/ webmin Where we'll find something very similiar to: Webmin is a web-based system configuration tool for OpenSolaris, Linux and other Unix-like systems. With it you can configure many operating system internals, such as users, disk quotas, services, configuration files etc., as well as modify and control many open source apps, such as the Apache HTTP Server, PHP, MySQL etc. by remote access from any computer in the world wide web... Now, knowing everything about Webmin, we are about to begin with the installation process. To install Webmin correctly, we'll need to install all Webmin requirements first and once they are installed, we are able to install Webmin.
sudo apt-get install perl libnet-ssleay-perl openssl libauthen-pam-perl libpam-runtime libio-pty-perl libmd5-perl && wget http://ufpr.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/webadmin/webmin_1.470_all.deb && sudo dpkg -i webmin_1.470_all.deb
If you want to be sure to get the latest Webmin Version, you should install the requirements first...
sudo apt-get install perl libnet-ssleay-perl openssl libauthen-pam-perl libpam-runtime libio-pty-perl libmd5-perl
...and than download the Webmin Package and install it by a simple double click. Now we'll have Webmin installed correctly and we're ready to explore and get to know the new aplication. To do that, we'll have to access the following direction with our Internetbrowser : 127.0.0.1:10000, (from any other computer: https:// [our IP-adress+]:10000). to enter we'll have to add an exeption to our certificate database. While exploring the aplication you'll see a ot of new features and interesting and easy going functions. here are only some of the functions Webmin is able to do for us, by remote administration: * Make Backups of the system files. * List executing processes. * Program execution of comands. * Shedule tasks in cron in a grafic way. * Install packages, by a local file, uploading a file, from a URL path or by APT. * Remove users. * Configure virtual servers (Apache needs to be installed). * Administrate data bases (The data base server needs to be installed). * Execute a command. * Administrate files by a grafic interface. * Download files from one or more URLs. * Burn CD's or DVD's. * Modify the GRUB menu. * List partitions and other hardware. To get a real idea of the power of Webmin, we made some screenshots for you, in some of the functions, we just mensioned. For example in the first one, we can see the Status of our computer, and some extra information.
Installing a package, calling a local path.
Burning a CD Image .ISO, by calling the path (Webmin has a grafic interface incorporated, to search for the CD or DVD image).
And last but not least, creating a Backup of our Filesystem, where we can specify the target directory and eventually choose the compressed file format .TAR.
OK, this post got a lot longer than I thought, but... we hope that'll help some guy, somewhere to solve some problem...
¡CAREFUL! Webmin is able to "BREAK THE ENTIRE OPERATING SYSTEM" if it is told to, so don't be a jerk.
