SYSTEM INFORMATION:
Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS
Webmin 2.520, no Virtualmin
Hello
Since many years I have Webmin on my little web and mail server, where I have root access and do all the settings by myself. Webmin I use rarely, sometimes for cron or mysql only.
I have Postfix and Dovecot, but virtual users are not supported in Webmin’s Postfix setup, which is amazing because that’s the default in Postfix I think.
So I do the config for Postfix in the terminal.
Now I noticed that there is Virtualmin, so I am unsure if this is actually a standalone GUI or a plugin for Webmin or both.
Can I install it as a plugin for Webmin?
My use case would be to let configure my few customers (mostly friends) their mail accounts themself. Password change, Alias and stuff like this.
At the moment I have some self written (not by me) PHP mail admin GUI which is very old.
virtualmin is a webmin module, it is possible to install virtualmin on an existing webmin installation, but be prepared to configure things manually until your manual configuration aligns with the virtualmin way of doing things. That said I added virtualmin to a webmin system & did not have too many problems converting stuff, but I did not have any mail users at the time so things may be different for you. I notice you have Ubuntu 20.04 as an OS, It may be worth a fresh install with Ubuntu 24.04 and then install virtualmin via it’s install script Downloading and Installing | Virtualmin — Open Source Web Hosting Control Panel which will install webmin & usermin as well. Usermin allows your mail users to alter their passwords, read mail and other things depending on what you give your users access too.
But, you’re not going to get a nice experience configuring it yourself on an existing production server with a bunch of configuration that may or may not match how Virtualmin expects it (Virtualmin is extremely configurable, but you have to know a lot about everything involved to be able to use it in unusual ways…there are a lot of moving parts, especially in email). We have an install tool that performs the hundreds of steps needed to make everything work nicely, but it needs to run on a freshly installed supported OS.
22.04.5 LTS I have, not 20.04.
I wait for the update until it is really neccessary, because that means a weekend of unpaid work and a lot of troubles normally (because never it is just an update without any issues).
Last update I did from 18.04 to 22.04 and next will be likely the same, from 22 to 26, I guess.
OK then, thank you.
Virutalmin sounds very interesting, but also very time consuming, maybe not worth it, just to allow some few users to configure their mail accounts a bit more comfortable.
Yes, I tried that before, to use Virtual Domain in Webmin, but I didnt find a how-to, what Webmin expects exactly in that tables.
I tried to enter: mysql:/etc/postfix/mysql-virtual-alias-maps.cf,mysql:/etc/postfix/mysql-email2email.cf
But this gives me the error:
Failed to query table : You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MariaDB server version for the right syntax to use near ‘from where = limit 1’ at line 1
EDIT: I nevertheless installed Virtualmin as Webmin Module now, the file: https://software.virtualmin.com/vm/7/gpl/wbm/virtual-server-7.50.0.gpl-1.wbm.gz which indeed installed it.
But again the same SQL error with from where = limit 1.
Ok then, one day I will indeed tinker with my postfix mail tables structures to get it running…
Virtualmin doesn’t replace the Postifx module in Webmin, it uses it. So, obviously, if the Webmin module can’t deal with your configuration, Virtualmin definitely can’t.
I don’t know how we could possibly do that. The install script will warn you and try very hard to prevent you from using it to install on (and break) your system.
But, the Virtualmin virtual-server module is just a Webmin module. You can install it like any other Webmin module. OP has an unusual configuration that won’t work with Virtualmin easily, so that doesn’t really help them, though.
And, generally, we don’t recommend just installing the Virtualmin virtual-server module, because people expect Virtualmin to Just Work, but it definitely does not Just Work without hundreds of extra steps to get everything configured in a way that makes it Just Work.
We try very hard to encourage people to use the install script on a freshly installed OS, because history tells us that users will be disappointed if they try to do it themselves, and they’ll probably break their system in the process.
My point was basically unless WM/VM starts providing the ISO there are just too many variables for the team to test for ‘clean’ and refuse to install on.
I see @Joe was in the process of replying as I typed…
Where would one make that choice ? If you know what your doing you can install the virtualmin module and configure the services managed by webmin to work with virtualmin, so you wish to stop webmin users installing modules ?
