I have recently been rebuilding my school’s web server from scratch with the awesome Fedora Core 8 distribution and one of the first things I did after running a system update was the grab the latest RPM of Webmin. Webmin isn’t really picky and has no real dependencies on packages other than the defaults that come with your Linux distribution.
Some may argue that Webmin isn’t needed or that it takes the real work out of Linux and maintaining the server, but with Webmin I use it to save time and quickly administer changes to Apache or MySQL without having to fire up a terminal and hack around in config files. If I need to set a quick directive I just pop open a browser and tick the option, no hassle of using vim over SSH.
What I really like about Webmin is the simple backup system it provides. Just head to Filesystem Backup and add a directory to backup this while give you plenty of options to help you easily backup your important data. For backing up the Apache HTML root I have chosen to use gzip coupled with a filesystem mount to the NAS every day at midnight. This has saved me a lot of hassle writing python scripts and editing crontab which has left me with more time during work to focus on writing PHP ffmpeg scripts.
Webmin also provides a very simple MySQL backup script that appears messy at first but once you realise that it combines crontab with it’s own python script to perform the backup then you can easily manipulate the SQL settings in the MySQL page or specific times in the Scheduled Cron jobs.
Webmin means that when I finish my temp job and head to uni, the other IT staff can easily modify settings on the web box without having to call me in regarding some perl or python script that needs modification, as long as they know where the specific settings are the GUI makes it so simple to configure.
Webmin beats the Windows GUI for administration because it provides a unified place for system administration. Instead of relying on certains apps the to use the MMC snap-in and hope they also provide network support, you will find that most popular services on Linux have a third party plugin for Webmin from Pure-FTP to Bacula.
If it wasn’t for Webmin I would of gone insane with my 20inch widescreen Samsung populated with terminal windows.
