Webmin

[Joshua Tinnin]

On Friday 17 December 2004 05:09 pm, Nikolas Britton 
<freebsd at nbritton.org> wrote:
> mark at the-allisons.us wrote:
> >I've recently installed FreBSD on a system and I'm working though
> > the learning process.
> >
> >In order to ease the configuration and maintenance issues I
> > installed Webmin.
>
> I am of the opinion that if you want to learn something that you just
> dig in and go for it at full bore, (even if you brake it, as this is
> a very valuable learning experience in and of itself and one of the
> best ways to learn*) not skirt around the issue using some wizard
> thingy so you never have to learn it. What happens when your wizard
> thingy stops working or brakes your system, what are you going to do
> then?
>
> *This is why I setup test machines and try to brake crap then try to
> fix it, If I can't then all I have to do is wipe it clean and start
> over. VMware works very well for this.

Yes, I agree, and you should probably get used to administration through 
a shell (command line). I know this can be scary at first, but there is 
no purpose in delaying getting used to it, because if you're going to 
run FreeBSD, you have to get used to it. However, like grammar, once 
you know the rules you can break them, within reason - once you 
understand how to do it the "hard way," then figure out a way to make 
it easier, except if doing it the hard way has a purpose (like 
discouraging mistakes or certain behaviors), or many times you'll 
discover that what looked like the hard way is actually easier. As an 
example, at first I used cvsup with the gui, but I found almost 
immediately that invoking it without the gui from a shell was not only 
easier and simpler, but it also allowed me to use it within a script so 
I could run it as a cron job. I still use a gui mailer and run my box 
for everyday use with a desktop, but I do all administration with 
shells or without X running at all (and sometimes Mutt and w3m are just 
fine, instead of KMail and Firefox). FreeBSD is created more as a 
server than a workstation or general desktop machine, but it works fine 
for me that way, although the administration of it reflects this 
distinction. I'm not saying you can't use Webmin, but I'd encourage you 
to try to admin it the way it's designed before you start adding stuff 
to it, just so you know what's going on behind that ui.

As far as your particular problem, I'm not familiar with Webmin, but you 
might have to install ssh or something similar to allow remote access 
with it. That question is probably best asked on the -questions list 
http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions , which is 
the main tech help list - this is not a tech help list - although you 
most likely will get a similar response, but perhaps someone does know.

- jt