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Managing Linux Systems With Webmin
The book is structured as 60 chapters, without any division into sections and I have serious arguments with the order of chapters; why are the chapters about configuring Webmin at the end, for example. That said, the book has a fine index and the usual two-level contents make it a fraction easier to find what you want.
I do, however, have a little digression about the 'Bruce Peren's Open Source Series,' of which this book is a member. Frankly, I think they all need, and deserve, a much stronger hand in editing. With this volume it is the bad structure and order; with "Intrusion Detection Systems with Snort" I found myself engrossed by the information and furious at the appalling grammar and sentence construction, particularly in the introductory chapters. The others in the series look significantly better at first glance but could still use better editing.
Once again we have an author or publisher who throws Linux into the title to make sure that it gets found by the greatest mass of likely readers while the tool described is more (not that I criticise the practice, they want to sell books.) Any *nix system can be controlled using Webmin -- including a great deal of Mac OS X not available through 'System Preferences.' Indeed, I'd recommend the tool to all OS X users who want to gain better control and install better tools for the underlying BSD layer in OS X. I use it myself for just this reason. If you run any other *nix system don't be put off by the 'Linux' in the title: very little of this book is Linux specific.
This one is well written -- Cameron has a light, informative style that I look for in a tech book. The book is well laid out, he gives good examples, good explanations and screen shots.
Cameron starts out with three introductory chapters on Webmin, its installation and security before launching into forty three chapters on using various Webmin modules, but with no real pattern to the order of most of the chapters. Why, for example, is the NFS module at chapter 4 while the Samba module is discussed in 43? I could list another half dozen examples without raising a sweat.
There is then a chapter on Usermin, the Webmin system for ordinary users. This is followed by three chapters on the server clustering system, a few on Webmin configuration and logging before the volume ends with chapters on building modules and themes.
Some of the chapters on the modules within Webmin border on merely stating the obvious, others are extremely useful. Overall they constitute a good manual to using the system, Webmin users who have not spent a great deal of time administering servers will find them particularly useful. The chapters on clustering, using Webmin on multiple servers to perform the same task at the once on many machines, are a good guide to administering and using this useful facility. I found the chapters on writing your own module more than adequate, I'm well under way to writing my first one after only a short time with the system and book.
One final complaint. Where in this book does it tell you how to start Webmin? I didn't want Webmin running from boot, so I answered No to that question and Webmin then ran. Nowhere did it tell me how to restart Webmin after I rebooted my computer and having the script 'start' in the directory specified as the config directory is a little less than intuitive.
Prentice Hall have a page for the book that has an author bio, the Preface and a sample chapter. Though this book is supposedly 'open content,' I couldn't find an electronic version anywhere. It might have helped, as it would give me a way to search the book faster.
In conclusion, this is a good book. With a little work on the structure it would be an excellent book, rising from a rating of six to an eight or nine. the lack of structure makes it unduly hard to find what you are after. I would recommend Webmin, as a tool, to almost everyone running a supported server. If you have no need for the section on clustering and writing your own modules you could buy The Book of Webmin for a few dollars less or browse the same book (even download a PDF version free) at Swelltech, which is less comprehensive but much better structured (and tells you how to restart Webmin). If you want a guide to Webmin that includes notes on writing your own module then this will do until something better comes along, or they release a second edition with greater thought to structure and order.
You can purchase Managing Linux Systems With Webmin from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Okay, no surprise that we've already got the obligatory: "CLI or DIE" posts. This is /. afterall. But, if we can put away the over zealous uberlinux advocacy for a minute, I'd like to offer some a positive defense for Webmin.
As a cat who occasionally works with at risk youth and adult computer literacy -- I personally find Webmin very useful for a simple reason... uhm, it's kind of simple. Especially when your target group is accustomed to working within Windows (and often nothing else).
Taking a kid (with a short attention span) and expecting him/her to gain immediate appreciation for a command line is like asking a republican to join you at a Pro Hemp rally -- it rarely happens, and almost never for the reasons you hope.
The same can be said for many small to mid-size business owners. They understand what they know and what they know is graphical representations of the underlying system that they use on a daily basis. Many would like to delve deeper, but simply don't have the immediate understanding of how to.
Trust me, it's far easier to take someone who thinks of linux as: that really hard to get OS, to take a shot when you can present many of the deeper OS configurations in a safe, understandable environment -- and what could be more understandable for the MTV generation than a browser?
I find it ironic that a user base as dedicated to expanding desktop acceptance and market share growth for their preferred OS would want to exclude and deride a product that provides growth potential.
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#SickNotWeak
The reviewer is trying to say that it would make more sense to more readers to have 'remote filesystems' grouped together. Whether or not Samba is a kludgy add-on, it is in the same general category as NFS.
My take on it is that Webmin is a single program, so it runs as a specific user, but in order to admin multiple services, it needs root permissions. I like webmin, but I don't trust it.
For example, most Apache setups run apache as nobody (or some other non-login account) and save the config files as root. THis way, if someone hacks apache, they can't rewrite their own config files and get more privs. If someone hacks webmin, they have privs for everything that webmin administers.
You can make webmin run under a non standard port (actually I think it does by default), routable only locally, and accessable only via ssh. That is fine if you want it for Root only. Ideally, the user space stuff would run as the user specified, and I don't think that is the case.
Webmin is a step in the right direction. I think it needs some work on the security model to really be usable.
Open Source Identity Management: FreeIPA.org
Guess what buttons you should never be clicked on in this webmin page:
[Stop SSHD] [Stop LPD]
[Stop FTPD] [Stop LDAP]
[Stop SMBD] [Stop NFSD]
[Stop HTTPD] [Stop ETH0]
Did you find the answer?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I've used webmin for something like 8 months now. i never had a need for a book but i must say that i LOVE webmin. the program is just about the best thing ever :-P
-I use webmin so that I don't have to remember all the man pages and switches for some CLI commands.
-Webmin shows some switches and configuration possiblities that you may not run across during your normal CLI sessions.
-It can help tweak your installations without trying a command 5 or 10 times until I get all the switches right.
-Sometimes just being able to hit the high port # (10000) when all the lower ports are closed can be a life saver too.
This sig has moved on
While I use a command line for just about everything I do, I have a business partner who can't seem to grasp the concept of the Vi editor, and I have forbidden him from using that atrocity of an editor, Pico. I've had simply no choice but to put webmin on our boxes we distribute only because it's the only way he can manage them. It also helps when you're installing one at a site that doesn't want a maintenance plan, but wants to be able to manage it all easily. Unfortunately, the computing world has changed so that people have become dependent on GUIs to step them through everything. I do give webmin quite a bit of credit, though, and if you use Usermin you can let users access the server through that to manage their accounts. It is a nice add-on for Linux, but I rarely use it unless I'm configuring something that has a script that's simply too difficult to edit by hand.
One thing you might be missing if, like me, you prefer to do everything in a shell: Webmin makes it easy for you to provide limited admin access to the other IT guys in your department who don't know Unix. If you're anything like me, you are probably getting used to being stuck doing boring adminstrative crap on the Unix boxes because noone else is willing to invest the time to learn how to do it. Webmin will set you free! Between the built in modules and the ability to add "custom commands" (really a simple interface that allows CLI challenged folks to pass some arguments to a command and see the results) you can enable any moron to do basic unix system administration tasks. No more phone calls to reset a password, change an MX record, or restart the web server! Create user accounts that limit the modules available, pass out some logins, and all the Windoze guys see is a web interface with buttons, no more scary unix shell.
-Lod
Port 10000, Webmin's default port, is reserved by IANA for NDMP usage, a network data management service utilized by some backup softwares. I know this is a Webmin developer issue and not a book author issue, but it deserves to be mentioned in any comprehensive book on Webmin. Webmin installed from its native scripts or from RPM on a box that has backup software will barf at startup. Backup softwares installed after Webmin will barf at their startup. Not a good thing, something Webmin should have accomodated for by now.
BTW, I use Webmin all the time. Great product. I have wished out loud and in print that Red Hat had spent their "NT Admin migration" energy in a cooperative work on Webmin instead of on their distro's own python tools. redhat-config-print is a fine tool, but CUPS comes with a web interface and Webmin has modules for both CUPS and LPR. Focus, people! Focus!
-j