How to install Virtualmin in Linux

In this article, we will learn to install Virtualmin on Linux Operating System. Virtualmin is based on Webmin, a popular web server management user interface for Linux. It is a domain hosting and website control panel that enables the creation and management of multiple domains and simplifies automation and tasks. It is a cPanel and Plesk replacement. Let’s look at how we can install this on our Linux machine using the command line interface terminal.

Note: To install Webmin, follow this tutorial: Webmin Installation

Installing Virtualmin on Linux OS using Terminal

To install Virtualmin in Linux, follow the steps below:

Step 1: Run the below command in the terminal to first install all updates on your Linux OS:

sudo apt update -y && sudo apt upgrade -y

Step 2: Install the wget package in Linux OS which will be used to download Virtualmin from the web using the below command:

sudo apt install wget

Step 3: Use the below command to download the Virtualmin installation script:

wget https://software.virtualmin.com/gpl/scripts/install.sh⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Step 4: Set the fully qualified domain name of the server like this:

sudo hostnamectl set-hostname <domainname>

Step 5: Change the access mode of the file and make it executable using the below command:

chmod a+x install.sh

Step 6: Once you’re done with all the above-given commands, execute the below-given command to install Virtualmin and all of its dependencies:

sudo ./install.sh

The above command will prompt the user to a confirming message about the changes that will take place in the Linux machine during installation. To confirm that we have to press y and continue with the installation process. Thereafter the script takes some time to complete as the installation is carried out in 3 phases.

Once the installation is done, we can set up the root password to run the web UI.

Configuring Webmin’s Root Password

Virtualmin is a Webmin extension that uses the system root user and password for web interface login. Let’s configure Webmin for a web interface. This procedure will not alter the system’s root password.

Step 1: Use the command given below to set up the root password for Webmin. Put the password into the following command:

sudo /usr/share/webmin/changepass.pl /etc/webmin root <Password>

Step 2: Now, restart the Webmin service to ensure that the changes get reflected using the below command:

sudo systemctl restart webmin

Step 3: Let’s install the ufw which is a firewall configuration tool in Ubuntu using the below command:

sudo apt install ufw

Step 4: Using the ufw tool, allow access to Virtualmin through a firewall using the following command:

sudo ufw allow 10000

Step 5: Now, we are ready to access the Virtualmin and the Webmin web interface through our browser. Go to port 10000 with the below-given domain name: 

http://<domainname>:10000 

This would open a login authentication page:

Step 6: Perform login by using credentials for the root user and by using the password which was set up in step 8. The user interface for Webmin will open up after authentication. It will look something like this: