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  1. #1

    Is Webmin that bad?

    I have read several threads on this forum about Webmin. It doesn't seem the best bet for commercial shared hosting. It seems people are more comfortable with cPanel...

    The rvskin addon doesn't look too bad for cPanel, but I haven't seen any decent webmin theme. Also, webmin is not very welcoming for a new user because of its interface. What do you think? Is it worth saving $30/month?
    Josh Lieber

    iTechPath | Fully managed servers with 24/7/365 support.
    PHP 5, MySQL 5, RHEL, cPanel & rvskins, and much more...

  2. #2
    Join Date
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    Its all about what market youa re going for with your hosting. If you are going for people that are not tech-savvy cPanel may be better - though it also may be overwhelming.

    If the skin is your only problem you could always make your own for Webmin. In general people seem to think the flashy stuff and all of the buttons is better - which describes cPanel. Webmin gets the job done but is not as flashy. I have also never used webmin in a shared host enviroment so I am unsure of how efficient it is or how smoothly it runs.
    John W, CISSP, C|EH
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  3. #3
    I have used Webmin, and it's not easy for a novice to find where stuff is.
    Josh Lieber

    iTechPath | Fully managed servers with 24/7/365 support.
    PHP 5, MySQL 5, RHEL, cPanel & rvskins, and much more...

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jun 2006
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    1,767
    Webmin is a BRILLIANT piece of software if you're only hosting for yourself - it'll save you from cPanel exploit attempts, lots of resource usage and licensing fees. You can get the StressFree Tiger theme to make it look imho nicer than cPanel.

    There are some issues for novice users however, though there is extensive documentation which will make it easier for you.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Location
    Portland, Oregon
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    It's great for the initial setup of basic applications, but for running a hosting environment a control panel such as cPanel, DirectAdmin, or Plesk is the way to go.

    Check out ravencore (http://www.ravencore.com). I am using it on 3 servers right now. It's very similar to directadmin, just a few less features. It's extremely easy to install, and can be used for a hosting environment or just for a few sites. It's very server friendly and only takes about 64mb ram to use (when in idle). Overall, it's a great control panel considering it's free.
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  6. #6
    Honestly, when I first bought a server without a control panel I installed webmin. I tinkered around with it a bit, then promptly forgot about it. I found webmin to be a bit overly complicated (I found it was just as easy to use command line, and command line works on every server ). I had qmailadmin / vqadmin for creating email accounts, and for the rest I learned to edit the configs manually.


    Alex

  7. #7
    Join Date
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    Location
    Newport Beach, CA
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    Quote Originally Posted by VT6
    Webmin is a BRILLIANT piece of software if you're only hosting for yourself - it'll save you from cPanel exploit attempts, lots of resource usage and licensing fees. You can get the StressFree Tiger theme to make it look imho nicer than cPanel.

    There are some issues for novice users however, though there is extensive documentation which will make it easier for you.

    I agree. Webmin is a great program. It's just not designed for people that don't already know the technology.
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  8. #8
    Join Date
    Jun 2006
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    If you want a demo of Webmin with the StressFree Tiger theme PM me - I bought a month of a VPS to teach a friend about Linux and we haven't got round to it yet.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Posts
    163
    I use webmin in addition to any other panel i use at the moment.
    I got addicted to webmin.
    Is so easy and friendly.
    Great for monitoring log files and much more.

    bob

  10. #10
    if you dont know enough linux dont go with webmin

  11. #11
    Yeah, my customers don't even know what "Linux" or "FreeBSD" means, so if I give them Webmin, they'll probably look at it with the eyes wide open.
    Josh Lieber

    iTechPath | Fully managed servers with 24/7/365 support.
    PHP 5, MySQL 5, RHEL, cPanel & rvskins, and much more...

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Sep 2004
    Location
    Italy
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    1,673
    I love webmin, I just don't use it, I just never will.

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
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    483
    I think you should check virtualmin. The paid version is much cheaper than CPanel and is feature rich.

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Location
    Missoula,MT
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    46

    Why I prefer webmin, well...kinda

    First, let me preface this with the fact that I don't really like control panels, at all. What I don't like about them is the fact that they can't seem to follow any conventions or standards on how or where configuration files are supposed to be kept in linux. I'm an old-school guy that prefers the shell for just about everything, including development, so I know I come to this conversation with some long-standing bias.

    Anyone who has ever managed a linux box via the command line and then tried to diagnose a bug or problem in one of the major control panels knows what I'm talking about though.

    Webmin adapts to any underlying configuration, which is why it's less intrusive than the others. One can go from webmin to no webmin back to webmin and not have any significant underlying changes.

    The only circumstance where I installed webmin was for non-technical people to be able to do things like adding virtual hosts, changing passwords, making email accounts and groups and so on. This was for in-house use only, not something we would ever consider giving to our customers.

    On the other hand, I have a current customer that uses Plesk. He knows the concepts of web hosting, but nothing technical, so Plesk works for him great. The only problem is the underlying mesh on the host OS and how long it takes to track down bugs and fix them. Stack trace of Plesk crashes are almost completely useless and I've had, on several occasions, to patch Plesk, or worse, go in an manually edit MySQL because of some process that died halfway through, like deleting a virtual host.

    Just my 0.02.

    Ciao

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Feb 2006
    Location
    Europe
    Posts
    140
    Never tried Webmin.
    CPanel might be a favourite, but also the most expencive.

    But there are others...
    I use DirectAdmin on one of my servers. Works great. And $299 for a liftetime deal isn't to bad.

    But if You like to look at some other free options, check out these:

    xpanel.com
    web-cp.net
    vhcs.net
    syscp.de
    Domain Technologie Control
    ispconfig.org

    Sammy

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Posts
    421
    Agreeing with VT6 on this, if you go webmin, the tiger streefree theme is very nice, that's what i use (i have better stuff to spend $35/m on ), as it's IMO a very nice theme...

    http://www.stress-free.co.nz/webmin-theme/
    || Semi-professional PHP developer || Exams right now, don't I just feel lucky? ||

  17. #17
    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Posts
    16
    I actually like webmin most because it does NOT have those tiny fonts in its base-themes.
    The theme that suits me most is the MSC.Linux theme. All the others make me blind. Who needs all the white on their screen? I get headaches from all the light.

    You can easily customize webmin modules in ways that they will be 'dumb user' proof. I've very often used it for non-technical users, via usermin and changing the module interfaces by editing them, or getting one of the thousands third party versions. Webmin kicks every other admin panel's *** ;-) You just need to know how to configure it.
    Quite often it's even a better control-panel than the desktop linux panels are. Installing webmin is one of the first things I do on a linux system. And yes, it's secure if you use it wisely. Never seen a breach on my systems caused by webmin's core.

  18. #18
    Join Date
    May 2006
    Location
    San Francisco
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    Webmin is an excellent free resource for all linux servers. I think it's a lot better than spending around $35/m for cPanel.

  19. #19
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Posts
    3,110
    Webmin is good but only for a single user as already mentioned. Another good free alternative is Web-CP which I have running on a basic box for a couple of low usage sites.

  20. #20
    Join Date
    Jan 2007
    Location
    Cardiff, United Kingdom
    Posts
    15
    I'm with sammy95 on this one, there are much better free control panels (or even cheap ones) out there that do the same thing, but in a much more effective method.

    Personally I use VHCS (not without modification, apply the security patches from the forums otherwise you will be easy to hack, but with them it is a perfect solution) on my linux boxes, for everything else (and what I used to use on my Linux boxes) there is always cubepanel. Its not mature yet but for the stage it is at it is very good, and on RedHat OS's is the easiest around to install.

    cubepanel.com

    Webmin should never be used in a shared hosting environment. It is basically designed for controlling application servers.

    -Chris

  21. #21
    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Posts
    16
    Quote Originally Posted by celliott
    Webmin is good but only for a single user as already mentioned.
    That's just not true. Ever tried Usermin? It works like a charm (belongs to webmin). With that every local system user can be tied to modules, and their settings can be adapted per user or groups of users. Easy. They don't even have to be users known to the system, strictly webmin-based users can be there too.

    If anything Webmin is perfect for as many users as you need it for. Its webserver is very robust even, but you can make it part of Apache too.

    Quote Originally Posted by kwigibo
    Webmin should never be used in a shared hosting environment. It is basically designed for controlling application servers.
    Hogwash.

  22. #22
    Join Date
    Jan 2007
    Location
    Cardiff, United Kingdom
    Posts
    15
    Quote Originally Posted by marsepein
    Hogwash.
    Hardly, if you simply look at all of the options it has, modules for controlling proxy servers, IM servers, printer administration, voicemail, kerberos, ldap, cdburning, and so on. These are all standard modules in a default webmin install, and I know of very few shared hosting providers that would utilise those.

    Usermin however, is different, it was designed to do hosting, but it has all the extra bulk of webmin with it. For web hosting, Virtualmin is the best *min based system to use, as Usermin again is designed to do what webmin does, just on a more user-based level. If you really have to use a *min use Virtualmin. Personally I would recommend the other control panels as per mine and others posts.
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  23. #23
    Join Date
    May 2006
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    1,426
    webmin is ok, i set up my first server with webmin and it took me a long time needless to say, Now I just use it in conjunction with my other control panels for other stats, service monitoring, etc; But as soon as Im done with it I turn it off, Im pretty sure they have the latest webmin pretty secure but the ones before it, the last one for example you could hack it and view any root owned file. i say you could scan a few subnets and still find lots of vulnerable ones running out there.

    I think there are better free control panels like vhcs but it as well has had its fair share of security problems. Well they all have even the paid ones, you just gotta keep up to date anything you use.

  24. #24
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Location
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    If you are doing web hosting business, then the customers always like a user-friendly, customizable and frustration-free hosting. Among all the control panels, Cpanel is the most user-friendly and you will get a lot of help from their official forums (http://forums.cpanel.net) , where as other community forums for Swsoft, DA etc. are not that active.

    Webmin is good if you host only your friends/relatives websites.

  25. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by Sammy95
    Never tried Webmin.
    CPanel might be a favourite, but also the most expencive.

    But there are others...
    I use DirectAdmin on one of my servers. Works great. And $299 for a liftetime deal isn't to bad.

    Sammy
    Yeah that's true, I've used both DA, Plesk and cPanel before and although cPanel does have a lot of nice features I'd prefer DA as it provides what you really need. The rest that cPanel provides are just extras.
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