Step 2 – Installing Webmin – The Martin Family

Introduction

Continuing on from Step 1 – Setting up the Pi this step installs the very useful webmin software allowing you to work with the Pi using nothing but a browser.

Webmin says this about their software: “Webmin is a web-based interface for system administration for Unix. Using any modern web browser, you can setup user accounts, Apache, DNS, file sharing and much more. Webmin removes the need to manually edit Unix configuration files like /etc/passwd, and lets you manage a system from the console or remotely.”

This installation assumes you’re running headless over SSH and want to be able to easily manage your Pi server with a GUI. Webmin is perfect for that job. First we need to get the dependencies out of the way. The first step is to fix user permissions; then we install the software.

Fixing user permissions

To fix (really setup) the correct user permissions you should copy and paste the text below to the terminal window. The terminal window will work through the entire set of commands when pasted into the window.

sudo groupadd -f -g33 www-data

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install apache2 php5 libapache2-mod-php5

sudo apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client php5-mysql

sudo apt-get install phpmyadmin

sudo apt-get install perl libnet-ssleay-perl openssl libauthen-pam-perl libpam-runtime libio-pty-perl apt-show-versions python

Note to readers: If the above code does not run immediately when you copy it into the terminal window I recommend:

Opening Notepad,
Copying the text into Notepad,
Remove any blank lines between the code
Copy the (corrected) text in Notepad, and
Paste the text into the terminal window.

When asked for a password you should use something secure that you won’t forget. I would suggest that you use the same password for the terminal as you do for Webmin.

Downloading Webmin

Copy and paste the text below to the terminal window. The terminal window will work through the entire set of commands when pasted into the window.

mkdir webmin

cd webmin

wget http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/webadmin/webmin-1.580.tar.gz

gunzip webmin-1.580.tar.gz

tar xf webmin-1.580.tar

cd webmin-1.580

sudo ./setup.sh /usr/local/webmin

Note to readers: If the above code does not run immediately when you copy it into the terminal window I recommend:

Opening Notepad,
Copying the text into Notepad,
Remove any blank lines between the code
Copy the (corrected) text in Notepad, and
Paste the text into the terminal window.

Connecting to Webmin

With the Webmin setup now complete it is time to access it in the browser. Open a new window or a tab go to IP address of your Pi (in my case http://10.0.1.xxx). Before you can get into Webmin though you need to add a port number to the end of the IP address. The standard port is 10000. So on the end of the IP address you need to add a colon, the port number and a forward slash (e.g. :10000/) to get to the logon page. Once you’ve gotten to the logon page you need to enter your username and password.

The default web interface user is: admin. The default password is the one that you entered earlier in the process. In general your installation should be ion your home network and not accessible from the internet.

I recommend that you do not use the username ‘pi’ and the password ‘raspberry’ or anything similar when the installer prompts you simply to add a little extra security. SSL is an option. If you’re only on a home network SSL will just make your poor Pi work harder and there is no reason to do that.

Summary

This completes the procedure for Step 2 – Installing Webmin.