How to Install Ubuntu GUI (Webmin) on Ubuntu 20.04. Webmin is a web based interface for system administration and monitoring of Unix and Linux systems. It provides system configuration, monitoring, maintenance and resource control applications for Linux systems.
The goal of Webmin is to create a friendly graphical interface for Linux system administrators to use.
It enables system administrators to control, maintain and administer their Linux systems from anywhere via the Internet or local network.
This tutorial will go over how you can install an Ubuntu GUI called Webmin on Ubuntu 20.04.
What is Webmin
Webmin is a web based interface for system administration and user management that can double as a server management tool. It provides a web interface to configure and administer your Linux server or workstation.
Webmin was originally designed to be a graphical interface for popular Unix systems. It later expanded into a full fledged system administration tool.
Webmin offers a graphical user interface (GUI) that allows users to perform common tasks related to system administration, monitoring and configuration management on Unix like operating systems such as Linux, FreeBSD, and Mac OS X.
Webmin is written in Python and Perl, with CGI scripts in C to interface with the web server. And it runs on the LAMP stack, which stands for Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP.
Features of Webmin
Webmin’s features include:
- Complete system control, including file transfer and emailing.
- User authentication.
- System alerts.
- Remote control admin tasks such as starting/stopping services, logging in to remote machines, etc.
- Automated backups of your server.
- User management
- Configuration management
- System monitoring
- Network monitoring.
- Realtime status updates like CPU load, swap space usage, etc.
Advantages of Webmin
Webmin is a highly convenient tool for system administrators to use as it offers benefits such as:
- Webmin is an open source web based interface, so it is cost effective.
- It allows you to manage your server through a web browser without command line tools or shell scripting languages, which lets you control and configure it with minimal effort.
- Webmin can automatically detect server hardware and configuration.
- It is easy to maintain; Webmin provides an easy way to update various parts of your system (such as packages) through its update manager.
- You can also backup your entire system database with just a few clicks.
- System monitoring allows you to monitor your server performance and show resources such as RAM, CPU usage, and disk space.
- Webmin offers an extensive range of tools that allow you to configure your server settings, such as network settings, FTP passwords, etc.
- Webmin offers user management, where you can create new users on your server without any technical knowledge.
Follow this post to learn how to install Webmin Ubuntu GUI on Ubuntu 20.04.
Install Ubuntu GUI (Webmin) on Ubuntu 20.04
Prerequisites
You will need
- Ubuntu server 20.04 system.
- A user with root or sudo privileges.
- A network connection.
Update & Upgrade the System
Run the following commands to ensure all the system packages are of the latest version.
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt update
Now that your system is up-to-date, you can move on to installing dependency packages.
Install Dependency Packages
Install the dependency packages like apt-transport-https to access the external repositories safely.
You can install all the dependencies with the following command.
sudo apt install wget apt-transport-https software-properties-common
Output:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
software-properties-common is already the newest version (0.99.9.8).
software-properties-common set to manually installed.
wget is already the newest version (1.20.3-1ubuntu2).
wget set to manually installed.
apt-transport-https is already the newest version (2.0.9).
…
Add Webmin GPG Key
Run the following command to get the GPG key of the Webmin Repository.
wget -q http://www.webmin.com/jcameron-key.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -
Import Webmin Repository
Now, download the Webmin Repository into the sources list and update the sources list using the following command.
sudo add-apt-repository "deb [arch=amd64] http://download.webmin.com/download/repository sarge contrib"
Output:
Hit:1 https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu focal InRelease
Get:2 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-security InRelease [114 kB]
Hit:3 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal InRelease
Get:4 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates InRelease [114 kB]
…
Install Webmin
Finally, you can use the following apt command to install Webmin.
sudo apt install webmin
Output:
…
The following additional packages will be installed:
libauthen-pam-perl libio-pty-perl
The following NEW packages will be installed:
libauthen-pam-perl libio-pty-perl webmin
0 upgraded, 3 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 28.4 MB of archives.
After this operation, 303 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
…
Type Y when prompted and click Enter to proceed with the installation.
Check Webmin Service Status
Once the installation is finished, you can run the following command to verify and check the status of the Webmin service.
sudo systemctl status webmin
Output:
● webmin.service - Webmin server daemon
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/webmin.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since Sat 2022-06-18 14:28:16 PDT; 57s ago
Process: 9258 ExecStart=/etc/webmin/.start-init (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Main PID: 9259 (miniserv.pl)
Tasks: 1 (limit: 5972)
Memory: 27.7M
CGroup: /system.slice/webmin.service
└─9259 /usr/bin/perl /usr/share/webmin/miniserv.pl /etc/webmin/miniserv.conf
Jun 18 14:28:13 ubuntu-VirtualBox systemd[1]: Starting Webmin server daemon…
…
Configure the Firewall to Allow Webmin
Webmin’s default TCP port is 10000. Use the following command to open this port on your firewall:
sudo ufw allow 10000/tcp
Next, reload the firewall so that the changes are in effect.
sudo ufw reload
Verify the changes by checking the status of the firewall using the following command.
sudo ufw status
Output:
Status: active
To Action From
-- ------ ----
10000/tcp ALLOW Anywhere
10000/tcp (v6) ALLOW Anywhere (v6)
Webmin has been installed . Now in this article how to Install Ubuntu GUI (Webmin) on Ubuntu 20.04 is time to access Webmin.
Access Webmin on Ubuntu
Set the Webmin root user’s password with the following command.
sudo /usr/share/webmin/changepass.pl /etc/webmin root [new password]
Output:
Password for Webmin user root updated successfully
Now, go to the following URL in the browser.
https://[your server's IP]:10000/
Webmin produces an SSL certificate that the browser does not recognize, resulting in a page alerting you of a potential security risk the first time you attempt to log in.
To proceed to Webmin, go to the Advanced > Accept the Risk and Continue.
You will see the sign in window. Enter your username and password to proceed.
Once you sign in, you will see the Webmin dashboard, which displays various kinds of options and system information.
That’s all for the Webmin installation on Ubuntu 20.04.
How to Install Ubuntu GUI (Webmin) on Ubuntu 20.04 Conclusion
In this guide, we have shown you how to install Ubuntu GUI Webmin on Ubuntu 20.04.
Webmin is a server management tool for Unix and Linux Ubuntu computers. It allows you to control your Linux server from anywhere via the Internet or local network.
Webmin is not just limited to administering a Linux server but can be used for other purposes too, like administering Windows machines remotely or managing a network firewall from one computer over the Internet.
Explore our other content on Webmin if you want to know more.
