Virtualmin Install keeps failing

Hi, first of all, I am a total noob to linux so pardon me if I ask some obvious questions.
I am good with programming generally but have always developed on windows then I just upload to a linux server at a host company.
Now I need to set up my own linux server for a project which requires setting up virtual hosts for clients. I chose Debian.
Unfortunately I had installed Apache-Mysql-Php (setting up my dev environment) before realizing virtualmin that i need for setting up the virtual hosts recommends a fresh install. I tried to install it anyway using the Virtualmin GPL but it keeps failing. See error message below

Package scponly is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source

Package libgd2-xpm is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source

So I try to download the packages but got the dev versions for both. dpkg --install package.deb gave me processing error but I double clicked the packages and the installer ran to completion. However, virtualmins still giving same error.

My question is how do I proceed with the install, do I get a fresh Debian install by all means or can I still work around this?

I am running the latest version of Vitrtualmin GPL on Debian jessie.
thanks for any help.

A fresh Debian install would certainly be the easiest and recommended way for “total Linux noobs”, otherwise you might run into more problems later. Better let the installer do the work for you, and don’t try to configure things manually.

Hmm, “Debian Jessie” is actually Debian testing, which isn’t something that Virtualmin supports yet.

My recommendation would be to use either Debian 7 (Wheezy) if you’d like to use Debian.

-Eric

wow, this is serious. I have to start the Debian install all over?

@Locutus, I am using the Virtualmin GPL auto installer not doing it manually.

@Eric, is there no way around this?

wow, this is serious. I have to start the Debian install all over?

@Locutus, I am using the Virtualmin GPL auto installer not doing it manually.

@Eric, is there no way around this?

I mean cant I install these unavailable packages and move on? And I didn’t say I am on localhost. Could that be an extra issue too?

Howdy,

Well, the problem is that you have a non-standard distribution there… we haven’t performed any testing on it, and it’s not supported by the installer.

You could perform a manual installation if you like, but it’s difficult to do, requires a lot of technical expertise, and we highly recommend against it :slight_smile:

You can see the list of supported Linux distros/versions here:

https://www.virtualmin.com/os-support.html

If you wanted to attempt a manual installation, you can review the instructions here:

https://www.virtualmin.com/documentation/installation/manual

Well, for a self-proclaimed “Linux noob”, I also like Eric highly recommend not trying a manual installation. Is it a big issue for you reinstalling Debian? It’s a matter of like 10 minutes usually. At least it’s nothing compared to the issues you’ll run into when trying to use Virtualmin on a non-supported OS.

Well, guess i have to download the right debian version. internet connection isnt so good where I am so it may take me some time. Anyways will Debian 7.2 (wheezy) be good enough? All I see on the Virtualmin list is Debian 7. They dont say which 7.x?
Any guarantees on Debian 7.2(wheezy) pls?

Howdy,

Sorry, I know it’s inconvenient, but in the long run I think you’ll be a lot happier when using Debian 7 :slight_smile:

Any Debian 7.x version, including 7.2, will work great.

-eric

ok so I took you guys’ advice here, backed up my Jessie install and installed Wheezy (7.2) this afteernoon booted from a USB stick. Thanks guys cos i believe it will make the virtualmin thing easier for me from all I have read here and elsewhere.

Now the problem is I cant run sudo and I cant particularly remember how I enabled it with the Jessie install. So far I have done

–> su root
–> adduser myusername sudo

then i rebooted my computer but I still get the ‘sudo command not found’ error when I try to use sudo. I have googled everywhere but no article treats this particular case so I am feeling like doing a system update maybe somethings are just missing…apt-get install update

My question is would an update like that make the system not fresh for virtualmin or can I proceed?
Thanks.

ok finally I got the sudo to work, It had to do with sources in my sources list. After I changed that and did an update I was able to install Vmin. The interface looks good and I will try to understand it more. Thank you guys so much.

Great, glad you were able to get it installed!

Well, joy not for long cos now I cant connect to the virtualmin installed mysql server via Virtualmin and even on the console I can only connect without password but I cannot even create a database. From the Debian terminal

mysql
That works

mysql -u root
That works too

mysql -u root -p
Works ONLY IF I do not enter a pw but just press enter. Else if use a pw gives the following error:
Access denied for user ‘root’@‘localhost’ (using password: YES)

In all cases that worked, I get error when I try to create a database like so:
create database test2;
ERROR 1044 (42000): Access denied for user ‘’@‘localhost’ to database ‘test2’

I dont know It seems strange cos even when I use mysql -u root it still says user ‘’@‘localhost’ indicating no current username.

To change the root password, I tried to use mysqladmin command but that gave me error too so I put the mysql server in safe mode and edited the password field of the user table in the default mysql database.

UPDATE user SET Password=PASSWORD(‘mypassword’) WHERE User=‘root’;

But on the command line I still cant login with the new pw i created.

mysql -u root -p
Enter password:
Access denied for user ‘root’@‘localhost’ (using password: YES)

On Webmin->Servers->Mysql server I try to make a database connection too but I get similar error(s). I tried the module config link to set a mysql server log on info. Error:
DBI connect failed : Access denied for user ‘’@‘localhost’ (using password: YES)

Could anyone point me to how I can get the root user to login with a password? I have confirmed that the password is set.

Also i have never seen this where root user has login problems. Could there be a problem with this installation since it is done automatically with virtualmin?

Any clues anyone? Thanks