Setup Webmin

To install Webmin via apt-get, you must first add the Webmin repository to your sources.list file.

On your server, open the sources.list file in your favorite text editor. We will use nano in this tutorial:

sudo vim /etc/apt/sources.list

If you are prompted for a sudo password, enter your user’s password.

Now press Ctrl-W then Ctrl-V to navigate to the end of the file, then add the following lines to the file:

deb http://download.webmin.com/download/repository sarge contrib
deb http://webmin.mirror.somersettechsolutions.co.uk/repository sarge contrib

Now add the Webmin GPG key to apt, so the source repository you added will be trusted. This command will do that:

wget -q http://www.webmin.com/jcameron-key.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -

Before installing Webmin, you must update apt-get’s package lists:

sudo apt-get update

Now run this apt-get command to install Webmin:

sudo apt-get install webmin

Log in to Webmin

In a web browser, access your server’s Webmin login page via its public IP address (the same IP address you used to login via SSH) on port 10000. By default, Webmin will start with SSL/TLS enabled, so you will need to use HTTPS to connect to it.

Open this URL in your web browser (substitute the IP address): https://server_IP_address:10000

You will be prompted with a warning that says your server’s SSL certificate is not trusted. This is because Webmin automatically generates and installs an SSL certificate upon installation, and this SSL certificate was not issued by a certificate authority that is trusted by your computer. Although your computer cannot verify the validity of the certificate, you know that you are, in fact, accessing your own server. It is fine to proceed.

Instruct your web browser to trust the certificate. If you are using Chrome, for example, click the Advanced link, then click the Proceed to server_IP_address (unsafe) link. If you are using Firefox, click I Understand the Risks, then the Add Exception… button, then the Confirm Security Exception button.