Topic: Integrating Webmin

[Lasse Johansson]

Has anyone been able to integrate Webmin into an E-Smith box?

My only reason for wanting this is to get an easy and fast interface for administer file system quotas for the users.

(Yes, E-Smith works well with user quotas, but it is painful having to dump int the vi editor every time something has to be adjusted...)

...Or are there any other nice interfaces for administrating user quotas out there somewhere???

Right now, I can manage the situation with a "rpm -U webmin-0.81.rmp --force" if things screw up, but a more stable idea wouldn't hurt...

[XiTatiON]

Ya i have installed webmin sucsesfully,  get the tar.gz file,  it dose not require gcc it is a scripted instalation.  tar -zxvf webmin.tar.gz in the /usr/local and run setup.sh  give it all the required info,  tellit your running redhat 6.0 and hey it works

i used e-smith ver 4  not sure if other versions work.  

XiTatiON

[Charlie Brady]

Lasse Johansson wrote:

> Has anyone been able to integrate Webmin into an E-Smith box?

e-smith strongly advises against installing webmin. webmin is completely incompatible with the e-smith system of templated configuration files.

> My only reason for wanting this is to get an easy and fast
> interface for administer file system quotas for the users.
>
> (Yes, E-Smith works well with user quotas, but it is painful
> having to dump int the vi editor every time something has to be
> adjusted...)
>
> ...Or are there any other nice interfaces for administrating
> user quotas out there somewhere???

Not that I know of, but it would be a useful contribution if someone was to build one.  It would be helpful if you could describe  what you have done with quotas - someone may then build it into an e-smith-manager add-on. I'd suggest that you post your description to the devinfo@e-smith.org mailing list.

Regards

Charlie

[Lasse Johansson]

All I did was enabling quotas on the desired partition, that works OK as it is, but it would be easier if

[Lasse Johansson]

Sorry for my posting a few minutes ago, ...slipped with the mouse

Charlie Brady wrote:

> e-smith strongly advises against installing webmin. webmin is
> completely incompatible with the e-smith system of templated
> configuration files.

Exactly HOW would that be incompatible if using webmin ONLY for administrating quotas?
>
> Not that I know of, but it would be a useful contribution if
> someone was to build one.  It would be helpful if you could
> describe  what you have done with quotas - someone may then
> build it into an e-smith-manager add-on. I'd suggest that you
> post your description to the devinfo@e-smith.org mailing list.

Well, I enabled quotas, and that works!
I have also now CAREFULLY used webmin to administer those quotas, and as far as I can tell it seems to work.

//Lasse

[Rick Philbrick]

I use it on Esmith 4.0.to help with mysql admin stuff seems to do just fine. no tweeks were needed.

[Scott Smith]

I believe the concern is not whether webmin "works" or not, but that it does not know about the e-smith templates and does not know how to work within the e-smith architecture. Changes made via webmin may be lost when e-smith regenerates its templates. Obviously, for things webmin changes that are not in areas templated by e-smith, there should be no problem.

[Charlie Brady]

Lasse Johansson wrote:

> Charlie Brady wrote:
>
> > e-smith strongly advises against installing webmin. webmin
> > is  completely incompatible with the e-smith system of
> > templated  configuration files.
>
> Exactly HOW would that be incompatible if using webmin ONLY for
> administrating quotas?

[snip]

> Well, I enabled quotas, and that works! I have also now
> CAREFULLY used webmin to administer those quotas, and as far as
> I can tell it seems to work.

You are probably right, although neither you nor I know for *certain* that webmin has not changed anything that e-smith cares about. And although you have been careful to only administer quotas, there's no guarantee that everyone who installs webmin on e-smith will be equally careful.

I stand by my statement that e-smith strongly discourages the use of webmin on an e-smith server. Developing a suitable e-smith-manager add-on, or performing administration on the command line, is much preferred.

Regards

Charlie

[Lasse Johansson]

Charlie Brady wrote:

> You are probably right, although neither you nor I know for
> *certain* that webmin has not changed anything that e-smith
> cares about. And although you have been careful to only
> administer quotas, there's no guarantee that everyone who
> installs webmin on e-smith will be equally careful.
>
> I stand by my statement that e-smith strongly discourages the
> use of webmin on an e-smith server. Developing a suitable
> e-smith-manager add-on, or performing administration on the
> command line, is much preferred.

Charlie!  You're most probably right in your conclusions, and I won't try to argue against that. It would really be very unwise if E-Smith somehow said that Webmin would be OK to install.
I'm quite certain, though, that my particular usage of Webmin doesn't change any E-Smith-templates (I'm using it on a "server only machine" with a single NIC), and I'm the only administrator, so I sleep well every night. (I tested out Webmin extensively on a development E-Smith "Server" through VM-Ware before I implemented it "in real" for this particular purpose, and I found that it is POSSIBLE to break quite a few E-Smith specific rules.

Actually, usage of Webmin on a E-Smith GATEWAY machine can easily break a lot of its security!

If someone develops an add-on for e-smith, I wont stick to my Webmin for a second more (I really don't have enough time to do it myself, but I would happily try to assist if someone with more time/knowledge wants to give it a try...)

Best Regards

Lasse