Is it possible to have a different webmin/virtualmin url installation?

Hello, Is it possible to have a different webmin/virtualmin url installation? What I mean is tha the webmin and virtualmin have the same loging url port, is it possible to seperate them with different port?

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Joe's picture
Submitted by Joe on Fri, 03/20/2015 - 14:29 Pro Licensee

Virtualmin is a Webmin module. They are not separate pieces of software.

When you login as a root or administrative level user, you will see Virtualmin+all of Webmin.

When you login as a domain owner level user, you will see a restricted version of Virtualmin and optionally a limited subset of Webmin.

The privileges a user gets is extremely configurable. There is no reason to separate them.

If you're trying to make Virtualmin/Webmin look/act like cPanel/WHM, you'll just confuse yourself and your users, as the two have quite different designs and visions for how all of these pieces should come together. Webmin and Virtualmin have very advanced ACLs and permissions, where cPanel/WHM mostly does not. It would be a downgrading Virtualmin to make it act like cPanel/WHM for this purpose.

Howdy -- sorry, there isn't a way to run Virtualmin on a different port than Webmin.

Virtualmin is actually a Webmin module, and relies on Webmin to function.

You could run Webmin without having Virtualmin, but it's not possible to run Virtualmin without Webmin.

Eventhough all that you said here above wich I understand pretty well is there still no way to have seperated logins and urls ports like (cpanel/whm) ? Regards, Heather

Well, Webmin is a service/daemon. And Virtualmin runs as a module within that daemon.

They are both designed to work within the same process, and to be accessed the same way.

If you wanted a "Master Admin" (root-like) user who only had access to Webmin features, and not Virtualmin features, you could create a second Master Admin, and then set them up with the Webmin theme. Doing that would hide Virtualmin for this particular Master Admin user.

But there isn't a way to split Webmin and Virtualmin for Virtual Server (domain) owners.

You can affect what Webmin modules are seen by a Virtual Server owner by looking in System Settings -> Server Templates -> Default -> Administrators Webmin Modules.

Thanks for this great info but would there be some kind of mockup tutoral for what you're saying? Regards, Heather

The reason of this splitting for me is to make it less confusing and also for security, it is strange that server adminisitrator log with the same website ownsers url port. I love webmin but I like the (cpanel/whm) loging style cause this makes it more clear for the server admin and the website owner.

Joe's picture
Submitted by Joe on Sat, 03/21/2015 - 12:23 Pro Licensee

Also, if you just want a different URL for your domain owners, you could setup a proxy configuration in Apache to do that. But, that won't change the fact that they are the same thing, and that either type of user (a root-level user, or a virtual domain owner user) would be able to login to either location. You'd be doing it purely to make things more complicated with literally no benefit to you or your users.

I think we might be talking past each other here. What are you trying to accomplish with this change? Is there some feature that is visible to your domain owners that you don't want visible to them? We can help you resolve that problem, if so. Is if that you don't like it running on port 10000, and would rather it be a URL path? There are ways to solve that problem, too (proxying, usually).

But, the idea of separating Virtualmin from Webmin just isn't something that make sense. It doesn't make things easier to use (two URLs instead of one is twice as complicated!), it doesn't provide better security (enable two-factor authentication, and fail2ban, if you want strong security!), it doesn't make logging better (Webmin can already search logs based on the username), it doesn't limit what your users can do or enable root to do more (both are determined by ACLs and permissions of the user logged into Webmin and not by the URL).

cPanel/WHM made a poor decision in dividing their services up onto different ports and we aren't going to follow them in making that mistake. You shouldn't follow them either. ;-)

You asked for some additional details about what I was describing --

For the first suggestion, creating a second "Master Admin" user and setting them up with just the Webmin theme --

You can create a new system user by going into Webmin -> System -> Users and Groups -> Create a new user.

There, you can set them up with a "Username" of your choice, I'd recommend using "/bin/bash" as the "Shell", and then for the "Password" option, set them up with the "Normal password" option.

The other defaults should be fine.

Once you create that user, you can make that user a Master Admin by adding them to the /etc/sudoers file. Doing that gives them root privileges on the command line, and root access in Webmin. To do that, add a line like this for that user in the /etc/sudoers file:

USERNAME ALL=(ALL) ALL

Where you would replace the text "USERNAME" with the actual user's username.

After doing that, you should then be able to log into Webmin/Virtualmin as that user, and then should be considered a Master Admin/root user.

Upon doing that, you can then set their theme to only the Webmin theme by going into Webmin -> Webmin -> Change Language and Theme.

There, you can select "Personal Choice" next to the "Webmin UI theme" option, and then in the dropdown list next to that, "Old Webmin Theme" as the theme option.

That will change the theme for just that user to the "Old Webmin Theme".

Note that doing this will only provide access to Webmin functionality for that user, and you won't see any Virtualmin related features.

The other option I mentioned was to change which Webmin options a Virtual Server owner can see.

To do that, you can log in as root into Virtualmin (this user will need to have access to all of Virtualmin), and then browse to System Settings -> Server Templates -> Default -> Administrators Webmin Modules.

On that screen, you can see a list of configurable options. If there are any modules there you don't want your Virtual Server owners to be able to access, you can remove those options.

Thanks for your time and support, when needed I'll try this, if I encounter any problems I'll get back to you, regards, Heather

I forgot toask you, how many hours would that task take to an expert webmin developer????

I'm unfortunately not sure of a number of hours ... since Webmin and Virtualmin isn't designed to work that way, you would need a developer to work with you and develop a specification for exactly what needs to happen, how it would look, and exactly how it would work.

Someone would then need to use that specification, and review the code involved in order to develop an estimate.

We do recommend against changing the code, and doing so is going to make it very difficult to obtain updates in the future, since that code would need to be re-changed in each update.

However, it is possible to do so.