Chapter 6. Server and Daemon Configuration
Clicking the Servers tab on the Webmin category bar brings you to what is probably the most interesting of the Webmin pages. It is here that all of the various complex servers and daemons can be configured. Webmin provides standard modules for a large number of the most popular servers and daemons in use on network systems in the world today, and more are being written all the time.
Introduction to Servers
The Servers Webmin category is for administration of the server applications that run on a system to provide some service to clients on the network. One example is the Apache web server daemon. Clicking on the Apache icon in this category will allow you to edit the Apache configuration files, which are usually located in /etc/httpd/conf. Most modules located in Servers will edit some configuration file found in /etc of some subdirectory therein. One of the most impressive features of Webmin is the ability to edit files without damaging existing hand-edited configuration details.
The root of much of Webmin's popularity is the ability for an administrator to perform some tasks via the Webmin interface without being forced to do all tasks with Webmin. Unlike some graphical frontends for Unix systems, Webmin leaves the edited file intact as much as is possible. Comments are untouched, and ordering of directives is not changed. This results in a system that can be configured via Webmin, and via hand editing of configuration files, with no conflict between the two methods. A side effect of this is that Webmin generally must provide a 1 to 1 interface to configuration files in order to ensure that configuration options are not confused, and to ensure that a savvy administrator gets what is expected from the Webmin output. This means that Webmin is not an "easier" way to administer a Unix system. The administrator still must understand the tools she is administering with Webmin. For example, configuring DNS from Webmin requires an understanding of named and its required configuration files. Likewise for squid, httpd, sendmail, etc. It can make the learning process somewhat quicker, however, as all of the options are present on the display, which may or may not be the case with configuration files.