I can't even install Virtualmin

Virtualmin
1

Does this place not even have any support? I guess we are just supposed to support each other in the forums? I should have known something might be wrong when I tried to contact the company a few times with no response. It still looked like a decent system, I’m glad I haven’t invested more than the price of a 10 user license.

Any chance some one could help me with the current problem, maybe I can still salvage this system? I start the install script and I get to the part that says:

INFO - Installing dependencies using command: /usr/bin/up2date --nox bind bind-utils caching-nameserver httpd postfix bind spamassassin procmail perl-DBD-Pg perl-DBD-MySQL quota iptables openssl python mailman subversion ruby rdoc ri mysql mysql-server postgresql postgresql-server rh-postgresql rh-postgresql-server logrotate webalizer php php-domxl php-gd php-imap php-mysql php-odbc php-pear php-pgsql php-snmp php-xmlrpc php-mbstring mod_perl mod_python cyrus-sasl dovecot spamassassin mod_dav_svn cyrus-sasl-gssapi mod_ssl ruby rubygems perl-XML-Simple perl-Crypt-SSLeay INFO - ...in progress, please wait...

And it sits there and sits there and sits there. 4 hours goes by same message, same little line turning in circles. So I Ctrl-C out of the script. Everything appears to be working fine on the server it is a brand new installation of CentOs 4.6. I try restarting the script and I get this message:

warning: cannot get exclusive lock on /var/lib/rpm/Packages

And then finally the same message that I displayed above comes up. And again with the hours of spinning and waiting… and . . … .nothing. . . AGH.

Does it really have to be this difficult?

Thanks,
Jason

2

I’m starting to think that this “most powerful hosting control panel” also has a night gig called “the least supported hosting control panel”. I’m not sure who it is that runs this site, but can I pay a little extra for support? I bought the license, what does support cost?

Anyway so I kick out of the installation and I figure what the hell let’s try installing some of these packages that it is trying to install manually. Here’s my result:

[root@www ~]# yum install bind Setting up Install Process Setting up repositories virtualmin 100% |=========================| 951 B 00:00 update 100% |=========================| 951 B 00:00 base 100% |=========================| 1.1 kB 00:00 virtualmin-universal 100% |=========================| 951 B 00:00 addons 100% |=========================| 951 B 00:00 extras 100% |=========================| 1.1 kB 00:00 Reading repository metadata in from local files primary.xml.gz 100% |=========================| 69 kB 00:00 virtualmin: ################################################## 270/270 primary.xml.gz 100% |=========================| 11 kB 00:00 virtualmin: ################################################## 83/83 Excluding Packages in global exclude list Finished Parsing package install arguments Nothing to do

Nice now it looks like I have virtualmin repositories in my list and I cannot even seem to install applications. So does this mean I need to reinstall my OS?

If there isn’t anyone that can support this, could I ask a couple other questions. 1) Does anyone know how to contact the providers to request a refund? 2) Does anyone know a quality platform that actually works and has actual support?

3
I'm starting to think that this "most powerful hosting control panel" also has a night gig called "the least supported hosting control panel". I'm not sure who it is that runs this site, but can I pay a little extra for support? I bought the license, what does support cost?

Support is free. All you have to do is ask for it. I don’t see any support tickets in the issue tracker filed by you, and I don’t think I’ve ever received any emails from you either. Usually, if you ask good questions we can also help you here in the forums–but it’s hard for me to keep up with all of the posts that come in via the forums, and sometimes threads that I intend to chime in on I forget about before actually doing the research needed to answer the question. The issue tracker doesn’t leave me the option of forgetting about it.

I’m sorry you feel we’ve neglected you. We are a two man shop, and sometimes the support queue backs up a bit.

1) Does anyone know how to contact the providers to request a refund?

Our refund policy is clearly stated on the order receipt, and on the “Terms and Conditions” at the bottom of every single page–we are not secretive about how you can get your money back, and we don’t hesitate to issue refunds–we do not want your money if you aren’t satisfied with our software. I post to the forums daily, and usually answer emails within 24 hours. We are not secretive about who we are, or how to contact us, and never have been. We’ve been building Webmin, Virtualmin, and Usermin for ten years, and we’re really easy to find.

If you’d like a refund, drop me a line at refunds@virtualmin.com.

Nice now it looks like I have virtualmin repositories in my list and I cannot even seem to install applications. So does this mean I need to reinstall my OS?

Presumably you already have bind installed, and there is, in fact, nothing to do.

What exactly is the problem? (Because not being able to install an already installed package–that we don’t provide, by the way, as bind is an OS-provided package–is not a problem, it’s yum working as intended.)

4

Read my first post to find the actual problem, instead of my attempts at manually installing the dependencies. Okay so bind is already installed but most of the other dependencies just fail when I go to manually install them.

Either way if you read my first post you’ll see the result of running the installation script.

I’ve sent a couple emails over the past 6 months via the only emails I could find under the contact us page. Never got a response on those.

As far as the bug/issue tracker. I was looking more for support I guess, although i guess the entire install script failing would be a good sized bug, I just assumed it was my own error that I couldn’t overcome since there isn’t much installation documentation outside of “here run this file”. I guess I can run through the manual installation except that I don’t remember seeing a list of dependencies, and even if there was a list, the dependencies that try to install from the automated install, half of them fail if they aren’t already installed.

5

Ah, sounds like this would be the time to ask us for the free installation service that is offered at the end of any failed installation. :wink:

None of these problems are normal, and I’m not really sure how to guide you on resolving them, but I’d be happy to drop in on your system, and complete the install for you.

This error:

warning: cannot get exclusive lock on /var/lib/rpm/Packages

Means that you’re running yum as a non-root user, or, if you are running as root something bad went wrong during a previous run of RPM or yum leaving the locks in a weird state–this isn’t really a Virtualmin issue, but the hanging for a long time during the install is.

Look in virtualmin-install.log for clues about what the heck it was doing during that time.

Note that on CentOS 4 the install script will hang if you have never run up2date on the system–up2date stops and waits for user input the first time it is run (and every time after that until it actually gets user input). There is nothing we can do to avoid this, and the bug has been resolved by Red Hat by using yum instead of up2date in RHEL5 (and thus CentOS5).

If you have, in fact, run up2date before, then I’m out of ideas. I’ll need to see the virtualmin-install.log (the last 20 or so lines will probably do it, or you can email me the whole thing at joe@virtualmin.com).

As far as the bug/issue tracker. I was looking more for support I guess, although i guess the entire install script failing would be a good sized bug

It’s not just for bugs. It’s for issues. You have an issue installing Virtualmin, we want to hear about it so we can help you…you file an issue, we help you fix it. It’s the “Get Help” part of the “Talk and Get Help” equation. Sorry that’s not made clear. :wink:

6

I’m definitely running it as root. The error about the exclusive lock only comes up after a failed installation that I Ctrl-C out of and then running the installation again.

The log shows the exact same thing as the output on the screen, but recommends looking at the up2date log. Once I look at that log in shows error after error of downloading the header information from the centos mirror. Which is weird cause everything worked fine before I tried to run the Virtualmin install file. My System had a brand new fresh installation of CentOS, and was freshly updated. Since running the install file I cannot even install packages using yum or up2date.

It’s almost as if all the repository locations were changed when I ran the install program and now I’m not sure how to fix it. Like bind, comes back “nothing to do” so I assume it is already installed but bind-utils, comes back failed, if I run “yum install bind-utils” but installing packages this way worked before running the Virtualmin install script.

I guess I could utilize your free installation services, except that doesn’t give me the ability to learn anything after you fix it properly. Maybe server administration is just to far over my head and I need to stop fooling around with it.

I’ll try playing with it some more and maybe try your manual installation, although it doesn’t seem to give any details I guess that method should be pretty automated as well if I can get through the webmin installation. I might have to request for an OS reload first to fix any problems that were created, not sure if that is just a waste of additional fees though if it ends with another dead end.

Thanks,
Jason

7
It's almost as if all the repository locations were changed when I ran the install program and now I'm not sure how to fix it.

The change we make is contained in /etc/yum.repos.d/virtualmin.repo

There are NO other changes triggered by install.sh. And, when the install fails, it cleans up after itself, and removes even that little bit of configuration. Of course, adding a new repository (even one that is broken somehow) won’t cause other repositories to fail, nor could adding a yum repository break up2date (which has its own configuration files that are separate from yum).

I guess I could utilize your free installation services, except that doesn't give me the ability to learn anything after you fix it properly.

Frankly, I’m not sure there’s anything useful to be learned here except “sometimes things break”. Luckily for me, the more I hear about your problem, the more confident I am that they have nothing to do with Virtualmin or its install script. Of course, I’m still happy to drop in and see if I can figure out what exactly they do have to do with.

I'll try playing with it some more and maybe try your manual installation, although it doesn't seem to give any details I guess that method should be pretty automated as well if I can get through the webmin installation.

Here is where I should say some very strong discouraging words!

Don’t do a manual install if you can possibly avoid it (which means “never do a manual install on a supported operating system”). It’s a huge time sink, and you’ll probably make mistakes (not because I don’t have confidence in your abilities…but because it’s a LOT of little details to get right). And you’ve STILL gotta get those damned package managers working. You can’t setup a server without working package management…and that’s the only thing stopping you from installing Virtualmin the easy way.

8

i ve been using virtualmin for 6 months now… installed it to CentOS 4 and switched to CentOS 5. It works fine with dedicated server except when i tried to install it in VPS it keeps failing. The problem wasnt related to Virtualmin instead the VPS itself. I wasnt really happy with the packages that came with CentOS as when I audit the server it failed the audit so i installed my own packages of MySQL and Apache… It works… Virtualmin is very flexible and the limitation is often our knowledge when it comes to handling such a huge and complex control panel. Ive been so far very happy with Virtualmin. Virtualmin support has been very helpful too in the past as I dont really use support now because I expand my knowledge and learn more abt the features and services in Webmin and Virtualmin.

Joe has been very helpful in many cases and has attended to all my support questions. Personal advice as i was in your postion before is to understand and learn whats in virtualmin or webmin. Deep understanding is required. Virtualmin dont offer a miracle. And its not One Solution fits All. But Im sure you’ll be fine, I know you will…

9

Long time GPL user… just purchased the Pro10 product while building a replacement server. OS is a fresh CentOS 5.1 install, followed by a Yum Update, and installation of Webmin. Not much else was done other than basic disable root ssh, and adding a few firewall rules.

I then ran the installation with the supplied wget install.sh command.

I too have been stuck at the following for over an hour:

[code:1]INFO - Installing dependencies using command: /usr/bin/yum -y -d 2 install bind bind-utils caching-nameserver httpd postfix bind spamassassin procmail perl-DBD- Pg perl-DBD-MySQL quota iptables openssl python mailman subversion mysql mysql-s erver postgresql postgresql-server rh-postgresql rh-postgresql-server logrotate webalizer php php-domxl php-gd php-imap php-mysql php-odbc php-pear php-pgsql ph p-snmp php-xmlrpc php-mbstring mod_perl mod_python cyrus-sasl dovecot spamassass in mod_dav_svn cyrus-sasl-gssapi mod_ssl ruby rubygems perl-XML-Simple perl-Cryp t-SSLeay
INFO - …in progress, please wait… -/
[/code:1]

The last couple of lines in the install log shows:

[code:1]
Transaction Summary

Install 28 Package(s)
Update 3 Package(s)
Remove 0 Package(s)

Total download size: 32 M
Downloading Packages:
[/code:1]

What suggestions do you have for me?

Thanks,
Clint

10

I dunno–looks like yum isn’t actually downloading anything. You could try running the yum command manually to see what happens.

But, you’ll probably be better off using the Upgrade to Professional feature in GPL–find it in the left-hand system menu. It just needs your serial number and license key…install.sh for upgrades of GPL is very nearly deprecated, as it really isn’t the right tool for the job (it’s necessarily so stupid that it can’t deal with a lot of stuff that a full existing Webmin/Virtualmin stack can deal with–it has to start from zero, whereas if you already have a system installed, Webmin and Virtualmin already exist and they know far more about the system than install.sh ever could).

Anyway, the upgrade feature within Virtualmin seems to be quite a bit more reliable than the install.sh–and it’s safer, as well, as it is less likely to damage any existing configuration.

Also, I’m happy to drop in and complete the installation for you–you can just send over the server details to joe@virtualmin.com.

11

Nevermind. I did some cleanup after killing the process and ran it again… worked fine this time.