Graphic Administration with Webmin

Webmin: provides general configuration, including language and theme selection (you can use Webmin in more than 40 languages), upgrades, module installation, logging options, log browsing and more. If you want to make your installation more secure, check the Authentication option (allowing, among other things, protection against brute-force password-cracking attacks), and also check IP Access Control and Blocked Hosts and Users. If you have the Servers module installed, you can use it to scan for other Webmin servers and administrate them remotely—although it won't be as speedy.

System: covers many different functions. You can control backups with the third-party option for the Bacula backup system or with a far simpler filesystem backup that uses either tar or the dump-and-restore family of commands to save directories to tape or to a file on another filesystem. Bootup and Shutdown lets you specify which services will be run at which levels, and also (obviously) to reboot or shut down the system. For user management, check Users and Groups (which allows you to create, edit or delete both users and groups) and Change Passwords, whose function is obvious. The Disk and Network Filesystems module lets you mount or unmount devices and filesystems, and Disk Quotas will be of interest if you have assigned file space quotas to users. You can schedule commands to run once (think atd) or have periodical jobs (think cron). You can get a top-like display of processes (but it won't refresh on its own) with the Running Processes option, and you can find plenty of information by clicking on a process id. Finally, to cut the list short, the Software Packages option allows you to install or remove a software package on the server remotely.

Servers: this category has to do with all the possible servers you might be running, including Web-related functions, such as Apache or FTP; mail functions (Fetchmail, Postfix, Qmail, Sendmail) and filters (ProcMail, SpamAssassin); file sharing (Samba); databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL); network functions (DHCP, SSH, DNS, SLP); proxying (Squid); and several similar functions. There are several options for each of these modules, so you'll want to click on each of them to see the available features.

Networking: covers more-specific network-related options, including configuration (interfaces, routing, gateways, DNS client, host addresses); services; connection (ADSL client, Bandwidth Monitoring, PPP, SSL tunnels, VPN); security (Kerberos5, IPsec); firewalls (the Linux Firewall provides an iptables-based configuration, and there's an option for the Shoreline shorewall firewall too); and more, including NFS and NIS.

Hardware: lets you control disks and volumes (including LVM, RAID and disk partitions; you also can use Smart to check the status of your disk units); printers; CD burning; and the system clock. If you are using GRUB, you can edit its options from here too.

Clusters: includes several options you will use only if you are running two or more machines forming a cluster, with the Heartbeat monitor—a rather more specialized setup, which proves once again that you need to know what you're doing before starting to mess with Webmin.

Others: a catchall for several options, including a command shell (implemented via a Java applet) for full console access, or Custom Commands, which allows you to set up and execute commonly used commands, with optional parameter substitution—a fine tool if you need to make some commands available to inexperienced users. There also is a File Manager (another Java applet), SSH/Telnet remote login, an HTTP tunnel for accessing Web pages, data files upload and download, and more.