Webmin service fails to start

gampel · October 19, 2026, 10:02am

SYSTEM INFORMATION
OS type and version	Garuda Dr460nized (Temeraire; Arch based)
Webmin version	2.670-1

After current update from perl to ver. 5.44.0-1the service don’t load. Downgrade to perl vers. 5.42.3-1 resolve this. (but it’s not a solution)

systemctl status webmin 
● webmin.service - Webmin server daemon 
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/webmin.service; **enabled**; preset: **disabled**) 
Active: activating (auto-restart) (Result: exit-code) since Mon 2026-10-19 11:49:19 CEST; 1s ago 
Invocation: b33f2db7d2cf4f7e87c303282f696566 
Process: 7851 ExecStart=/opt/webmin/miniserv.pl --nofork /etc/webmin/miniserv.conf **(code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)** 
Main PID: 7851 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE) 
Mem peak: 11.6M 
CPU: 49ms

journalctl -xeu webmin
 The unit webmin.service has entered the 'failed' state with result 'exit-code'.
Okt 19 11:54:52 garudacomp miniserv.pl[60037]: [19/Oct/2026:11:54:52 ] IPv6 support enabled
Okt 19 11:54:52 garudacomp miniserv.pl[60037]: [19/Oct/2026:11:54:52 ] Using MD5 module Digest::MD5
Okt 19 11:54:52 garudacomp miniserv.pl[60037]: [19/Oct/2026:11:54:52 ] Using SHA512 via crypt() function
Okt 19 11:54:52 garudacomp miniserv.pl[60037]: [19/Oct/2026:11:54:52 ] Using HMAC-SHA256 for session ID hashing
Okt 19 11:54:52 garudacomp miniserv.pl[60037]: [19/Oct/2026:11:54:52 ] PAM use is mandatory, but could not be enabled!
Okt 19 11:54:52 garudacomp systemd[1]: webmin.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Subject: Unit failed
Defined-By: systemd
Support: https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel

miniserv log:

timeout at /opt/webmin/miniserv-lib.pl line 147.
timeout at /opt/webmin/miniserv-lib.pl line 147.
[19/Oct/2026:11:39:11 +0200] [127.0.0.1] Redirecting HTTP request to https://localhost:10000/
[19/Oct/2026:11:39:11 +0200] [127.0.0.1] Redirecting HTTP request to https://localhost:10000/
timeout at /opt/webmin/miniserv-lib.pl line 147.
[19/Oct/2026:11:41:00 +0200] [127.0.0.1] Redirecting HTTP request to https://localhost:10000/
[19/Oct/2026:11:48:43 +0200] Shutting down

Joe · October 20, 2026, 1:25am

If I’m reading the code right, this means:

You have pam_only set in the Webmin configuration.
You don’t have Authen::PAM Perl module available.

So, the solution is either:

Don’t use pam_only. Webmin can authenticate to the shadow file directly, or a separate Webmin user file.
Install Authen::PAM Perl module.

The code in question: webmin/miniserv.pl at f59a235d1751553b93aa01663d6b52bcd113cec0 · webmin/webmin · GitHub

gampel · October 20, 2026, 5:44pm

On arch, package webmin has this dependency. As test i reinstalled webmin

Summary

pacman -Qi webmin 
Name                     : webmin 
**Version                  : 2.670-1 
Beschreibung             : A web-based administration interface for Unix systems 
Architektur              : any 
URL                      : http://www.webmin.com/ 
Lizenzen                 : custom:webmin 
Gruppen                  : Nichts 
Stellt bereit            : Nichts 
Hängt ab von             : perl  perl-net-ssleay  perl-authen-pam  perl-encode-detect  openssl 
Optionale Abhängigkeiten :perl-socket6: For IPv6 support 
perl-io-tty: For xterm module 
Benötigt von             : Nichts 
Optional für             : Nichts 
In Konflikt mit          : Nichts 
Ersetzt                  : Nichts 
Installationsgröße       : 87,72 MiB 
Packer                   : Garuda Builder <team@garudalinux.org> 
Erstellt am              : Fr 02 Okt 2026 05:15:27 CEST 
Installiert am           : Di 20 Okt 2026 19:07:33 CEST 
Installationsgrund       : Ausdrücklich installiert 
Installations-Skript     : Ja 
Verifiziert durch        : SHA-256-Summe  Signatur

With perl 5.42 the pam module is in use. With perl 5.44 not. (if i understand this right)

Summary

pacman -Qqo '/usr/lib/perl5/5.44' 
cairo-perl 
glib-perl 
graphicsmagick 
graphviz 
imagemagick 
net-snmp 
perl 
perl-alien-libxml2 
perl-bit-vector 
perl-cairo-gobject 
perl-clone 
perl-data-uuid 
perl-dbi 
perl-filesys-df 
perl-glib-object-introspection 
perl-graphics-tiff 
perl-html-parser 
perl-image-sane 
perl-list-moreutils-xs 
perl-locale-gettext 
perl-proc-processtable 
perl-xml-libxml

Current package perl-authen-pam is only function with perl 5.4.2. (my mind)

WARNING: '/usr/lib/perl5/5.42' contains data from at least 2 packages which will NOT be used by the installed perl interpreter.

pacman -Qqo '/usr/lib/perl5/5.42'
perl-authen-pam
perl-encode-detect

The solution was to set pam_only=1 to =0.

Thanks for the quick help.