Webmin, Virtualmin

Updated 20-Sep-2023

> Note: as of 2017 I no longer use webmin or virtualmin, though I still believe it is much better than Cpanel and other related. This page will not be updated over time with information about Webmin and Virtualmin, and perhaps Usermin, and Cloudmin. Basically Webmin and Virtualmin are similar in functionality to the more widely known WHM and Cpanel. My experience is that Webmin and Virtualmin are superior in a variety of ways, but obviously use case will likely dictate what that means for any given individual.

Advantages of Webmin and Virtualmin

• Webmin runs its own webserver miniserv.pl, and while that takes some memory, it is much better when there are big problems with the apache or nginx installation (that is, your webserver admin tools aren't also not working).
• Webmin and Virtualmin is way better at managing Apache, as opposed to the misbegotten so-called EasyApache.

"cPanel & WHM does (sic) not require that you use EasyApache, but it provides a convenient and easy method to modify your web server." #fail

— Jeff Mcneill (@jeffmcneill) April 26, 2016

• Webmin and Virtualmin are Open Source and Freely available, extensible, with a friendly community.
• Tons of modules
• Besides the Webmin and Virtualmin documentation, there are several Webmin and Virtualmin books, including:
  • Webmin Administrator's Cookbook
  • Webmin & Virtualmin: The Best Open Source Alternative to Cpanel
  • Virtualmin Tips & Hacks: How to Setup, Integrate and Automate PHP-FPM & Nginx Reverse Proxy in Virtualmin

Configuration Issues

Not everything is perfect in the land of Webmin and Virtualmin. Here are some notes:

Backups

• To get backups that will not overwrite each other have to use a path that includes a date such as /%d-%m-%Y, and also enable **Do strftime-style time substitutions on file or directory name **.
• Virtualmin backup S3 support is nice, but the Webmin backup doesn't have S3

Mail Configuration

Apparently Webmin and Virtualmin rely on the existence of (have dependencies or are dependent upon) Postfix, Mailman, and Dovecot. Perhaps not all three, and perhaps a few others. This is not quite true, but some error messages do crop up at various points. However, these don't actually have to be running (they can be disabled and not start at boot). It may be possible to remove the other remnants that depend on the mail applications, and then finally remove them.