New Installation Debian 9.3 webmin fails on restart

Hi,

i setup a new server under Debian 9.3, since i have to upgrade a bunch of softwarepackages to PHP7.

So i setup virtualmin (latest install.sh got by wget) and started moving virtual hosts and also created two new hosts.

confusing are the following issues:

After defining the first new host, it got me a lock file for the apache file, which wouldn't go away not even with a restart. Then i moved the .lck to lck.old an created a new virtual server. This time it showed the OK, but i couldn't open any option of webmin or virtualmin.

A webmin restart failed, a webmin stop failed to. So i rebooted, no avail. when i enter /etc/init.d/webmin start, it does not yield any error

root@server05 ~ # /etc/init.d/webmin start

root@server05 ~ # ps auxw | grep miniserv | grep webmin

root@server05 ~ # /etc/init.d/webmin start

root@server05 ~ # ps auxw | grep miniserv | grep webmin

and so on.

when i try to use service webmin start, i will get the same error like with service webmin status:

root@server05 ~ # ps auxw | grep miniserv | grep webmin

root@server05 ~ # /etc/init.d/webmin start

root@server05 ~ # ps auxw | grep miniserv | grep webmin

root@server05 ~ # /etc/init.d/webmin start

root@server05 ~ # ps auxw | grep miniserv | grep webmin

root@server05 ~ # service webmin status

● webmin.service - LSB: web-based administration interface for Unix systems

Loaded: loaded (/etc/init.d/webmin; generated; vendor preset: enabled)

Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Thu 2018-01-04 12:22:18 CET; 9min ago

 Docs: man:systemd-sysv-generator(8)

Process: 1544 ExecStart=/etc/init.d/webmin start (code=exited, status=2)

Jan 04 12:22:16 server05 systemd[1]: Starting LSB: web-based administration interface for Unix systems...

Jan 04 12:22:17 server05 perl[1545]: pam_unix(webmin:auth): authentication failure; logname= uid=0 euid=0 tty= ruser= rhost= user=root

Jan 04 12:22:18 server05 systemd[1]: webmin.service: Control process exited, code=exited status=2

Jan 04 12:22:18 server05 systemd[1]: Failed to start LSB: web-based administration interface for Unix systems.

Jan 04 12:22:18 server05 systemd[1]: webmin.service: Unit entered failed state.

Jan 04 12:22:18 server05 systemd[1]: webmin.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.

How can i fix this, so i can continue work and create more virtual hosts? I surfed around in order to find more info, but haven't found something applying to my problem. btw: i let Webmin create letsencrypt certificates für itself and for the domains.

Does the renewal process work now?

btw, the pam file in webmin folder has current changes:

mod_equiv=pam_unix_acct.so=pam_pwdb.so pam_unix_auth.so=pam_pwdb.so pam_unix_passwd.so=pam_pwdb.so pam_unix_session.so=pam_pwdb.so pam_unix_sess.so=pam_pwdb.so pam_unix.so=pam_pwdb.so

ignore=README

pam_dir=/etc/pam.d

lib_dirs=/lib/security /lib/*/security

Perhaps this is part of the problem.

Thanks for help and best j_m

PS: netstat -tanp | grep :10000 doesnt give any result