HOWTO: Webmin in Ubuntu

[Readis]

First of all, and most important... DON'T use the webmin from apt-get or Synaptic. These are older files, and they will require 'root' as the login. I know, I know... there are ways to login as root, and use root access, but why deal with it? Here is what I have done, and it is much more secure then what you will get with their packages.

Prereqs: Perl 5 interpreter (Should be installed with base system)
libnet-ssleay-perl ( Not install with base system... get with Synaptic)

Download 'webmin-1.170.tar.gz' from www.webmin.com/download.html
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cd (location you downloaded to)
sudo tar xzvf webmin-1.170.tar.gz
cd webmin-1.170
sudo sh setup.sh
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In the install you will have several choices to make...
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Config file directory [/etc/webmin]:
# Leave as default, or change as you wish

Log file directory [/var/webmin]:
# Leave as default, or change as you wish

Full path to perl (default /usr/bin/perl):
# Leave as default, or change as you wish

Operating system:
#Enter '6'

Version:
#Enter '6'

Web server port (default 10000):
# This is where you can start to make webmin more secure then
# the standard install you get with apt-get, Synaptic, or RPM.
# Leave as default or change it to what ever port you want.

Login name (default admin):
# The first time I ran this I thought 'default admin' was 'root'...
# Nope. It is 'admin', so you can leave it as that, or put in
# any name that you like. I would recommend a name that is
# not installed on your system.

Login password:
# By creating the user above and giving it a password, you have
# now made it so you will not need to log into webmin with root.

Password again:
# Self explanatory

## If you did not install 'libnet-ssleay-perl' you will get the following message:
## 'The Perl SSLeay library is not installed. SSL not available.'
## You can continue with the install, but I would not recommend it.
## Install the file with Synaptic, and start the script over.
## You will then get the following:

Use SSL (y/n):
# Of course 'y'

Start Webmin at boot time (y/n):
#Once agian... 'y'

# At this point it is going to configure things, install things, and
# create things... blah blah blah.
# It will then tell you that you can log in to https://hostname:10000
# and to accept the certificate.

There you go... a more secure install of Webmin, and you will not need to go changing root issues on your system. And even if you do... who cares. Webmin won't.

-Readis