Webmin is an open-source web control panel for system administration for Linux/UNIX. Webmin allows you to manage users, groups, disk quotas as well as configure most popular services including web, FTP, email and database servers.

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Webmin on an Ubuntu 18.04 server. The same instructions apply for Ubuntu 16.04.

Prerequisites

Before continuing with this tutorial, make sure you are logged in as root or user with sudo privileges.

Installing Webmin on Ubuntu

The easiest and recommended way to install Webmin on Ubuntu machines is to enable the Webmin repository and install the Webmin package through the command line.

Perform the following steps to install Webmin on Ubuntu:

  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 -

    And enable the Webmin repository by typing:

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

    Once the installation finishes, 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 Ubuntu 18.04 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 Ubuntu system open your favorite 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 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, which provides basic information about your system.

From here you can start configuring and managing your Ubuntu 18.04 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 Ubuntu 18.04 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.