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Install Webmin through APT

...so that your web-based Linux admin app gets auto-updates.

You probably already know this, but Webmin is a web front-end for administering Linux systems. It really shines when you can't use a graphical user interface, e.g. when your system is 'headless', i.e. not connected to a display, and/or you don't want to use a remote command line.

APT is a popular package manager for Linux systems. It handles software installs, uninstalls, updates, and dependencies so that you don't have to. It has thousands of applications, programs, and packages available. 

But for some reason, you can't natively install Webmin through APT. 

The official Webmin site only gives directions on downloading and installing Webmin manually. This means that updates would not automatically be flagged, and if you're used to the convenience of software updates through APT, this is retrograde.

So I'm going to show you how to add Webmin to APT's sources so that you can install, update, and even remove it through APT.

This guide is written for Raspberry Pi Raspbian, but should be easily translated to other flavours of Linux.

Step: Get signing key

At the command line enter:

wget http://www.webmin.com/jcameron-key.asc

and:

gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/jcameron-key.gpg ./jcameron-key.asc

The 'old' method - used by most other guides - of updating the trusted key list used 'apt-key', which is deprecated. (Unfortunately, this includes the official Wiki.) You can do the two steps in one command with pipes and such but that didn't work for me. Note that the 'apt-key' method still works, it's just not future-proof, and you will be informed of this by alert message.

Step: Add Webmin repository to APT sources list

Raspbian's APT sources can be edited by entering:

sudo pico /etc/apt/sources.list.d/raspi.list

Different flavours of Linux use distinct, but not too dissimilar, file names and locations.

Add the line:

deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/jcameron-key.gpg] https://download.webmin.com/download/repository sarge contrib

Save and exit.

Step: Install Webmin

sudo apt update

sudo apt install webmin

Step: Post-Install

Webmin runs over HTTPS by default. If you don't have an SSL certificate you can change it to use HTTP by editing the file:

/etc/webmin/miniserv.conf

and changing 'ssl=1' to 'ssl=0', then restarting:

sudo systemctl restart webmin.service

If you followed an older guide and used apt-key to add the trusted key you can remove it by following this guide.

Step: Test

Open a browser on your client computer and give it the URL 'http://server:10000'. Webmin's default port is 10000. A login page should appear.

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Location: Koganei, Tokyo, Japan

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