Webmin is an open-source web control panel for administration of Linux servers. With Webmin you can manage the system users, groups, disk quotas as well as configure most popular services including web, ssh, ftp, email and database servers.

This tutorial explains how to install Webmin on Debian Linux 9.

Prerequisites

You’ll need to be logged in as root or user with sudo access to be able to install packages.

Installing Webmin on Debian

Installing Webmin on Debian Linux is a relatively straightforward process and will only take a few minutes.

  1. Start by updating the packages list and installing the dependencies:
    sudo apt updatesudo apt install software-properties-common apt-transport-https wget
  2. Next, import the Webmin GPG key using the following wget command:
    wget -q http://www.webmin.com/jcameron-key.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -

    Enable the Webmin repository:

    sudo add-apt-repository "deb [arch=amd64] http://download.webmin.com/download/repository sarge contrib"
  3. Install the Webmin package by typing:
    sudo apt update && sudo apt install webmin

    Once the installation is complete, the following output will be displayed:

    Webmin install complete. You can now login to https://your_server_ip_or_hostname:10000/
    as root with your root password, or as any user who can use sudo
    to run commands as root.

    The Webmin service will start automatically.

That’s it! At this point, you have successfully installed Webmin on your Debian 9 server.

Adjust the Firewall

By default, Webmin listens for connections on port 10000 on all network interfaces.

If your server runs a UFW firewall, you’ll need to open the Webmin port.

To allow traffic on port 10000 run the following command:

sudo ufw allow 10000/tcp

Accessing Webmin Web Interface

Now that Webmin is installed on your Debian server, launch your web browser and type your server’s hostname name or public IP address followed by the Webmin port 10000:

https://your_server_ip_or_hostname:10000/

The browser will complain about the certificate being not valid because by default, Webmin uses an untrusted self-signed SSL certificate.

Login to the Webmin web interface using your root or sudo user credentials:

Once you log in, you will be redirected to the Webmin dashboard where you can see basic information about your system.

From here you can start configuring and managing your Debian 9 server as per your requirement.

Upgrading Webmin

To upgrade your Webmin installation when new releases are published, you can use the apt package manager normal upgrade procedure:

sudo apt updatesudo apt upgrade

Conclusion

You have successfully installed Webmin on your Debian 9 machine. You can now install FTP server or LAMP/LEMP stack and start managing the services through the Webmin web interface.

To learn more about Webmin visit their official documentation page.

If you have any questions, please leave a comment below.