Re: [webmin-l] Ramblings after reviewing the pole

[Jamie C. <jca...@we...>]

On Sun, 2005-12-11 at 04:40, John Hinton wrote:
> I've been using Webmin for about 2 years now. I for the most part love 
> it. I find Jamie's Managing Linux System with Webmin to be one of the 
> best resouce books on my shelf. His terse explanations of any particular 
> program, before going into how it interacts with the module has helped 
> me "quickly" learn about 'new to me' applications. (Jamie.. maybe you 
> should cut these sections out and create a 'Pocket Guide to Linux'! I 
> don't need no more stinkin' 1500 page Linux manuals!) :) I must contest 
> the 'Webmin' book stinks comment and this must be from someone with no 
> grasp of Linux.. and the frustration is being dumped to Webmin.
> 
> I do however feel that Webmin and Virtualmin are geek tools for only 
> geeks. Stick an end user in there and you'll have a mess to clean up. I 
> have some pretty good end users, not Linux people, and none have the 
> ability to safely deal with this interface. I'm not complaining about 
> that, I simply no longer allow access to Webmin by any of our users.
> 
> One of the things I like the most about Webmin, is the very fact that it 
> 'is' geeky. Don't force automation on me.. If I wanted automation I 
> would just put in Windows servers. I have never seen as a for instance, 
> a single GUI that I liked for dealing with bind. I personally believe 
> that if you are going to run bind and manage domains, you really need to 
> get a good grip on it. I personally use a template to create my bind 
> records in Webmin and always edit changes by hand... That's just me.. 
> but what I'm getting at here, is Webmin gives me the ability to do that 
> and in a lot of different areas. More automation, would just 'dumb it 
> down' to the average Windows GUI which rarely gives the end user the 
> ability to really understand what is going on and what is really being 
> written to the system.

Like Paul said, there is definately a trade-off between power and ease
of use. In Webmin I've generally tried to make all the functionality of
the underlying servers (Apache, sendmail ,etc..) configurable. However,
this leads to a quite complex user interface in some cases..

Personally though, that's the way I like it :) Also, this has the
advantage that Webmin will be able to parse and display any existing
configuration files that have been created manually..

> So, please leave Webmin and Virtualmin geeky! Yeah, perhaps more in the 
> way of help on every page of each module would be helpful, if not for 
> any other reason than to explain what this 'three word button' really 
> does. Sometimes it is just a case of guessing the meaning, testing what 
> happens to make sure what you think it means is really what it means. A 
> quick for instance is 'Custom Fields' in Virtualmin. I must have missed 
> the introduction to this on the list, I might have some good uses for 
> it, but don't really know what I could do with it based on the 
> information within Virtualmin. Please, don't take this as a request for 
> an explanation due to this email... just one of those nice pop-up help 
> files would go a long way in a lot of places.

The custom fields feature is just a way of being able to enter
additional information for virtual servers, such as the owner's address,
account number or whatever. I have to agree that it isn't too well
documented though :)

> Webmin has come a LONG ways in the last two years. At the same time, it 
> has slowly gotten more complex. Many of my requests have been added and 
> I've seen many others. I do hope that it doesn't get to the point where 
> it's trying to do too much.

Yeah, that is a risk .. fortunately though the modular design means that
you don't have to use or even see modules that aren't relevant for your system.

> Just as I started out... I for the most part love it! Some of the things 
> that it does have such extreme intelligence that I'm amazed! Webmin has 
> also 'taught me' how to do many things that I could have spent hours or 
> days learning and has taught me how to do some things using better 
> methods. It really is fantastic.

Thanks!

> Not long after I started using the Webmin systems, a rather quick review 
> of Usermin left me with the feeling that this was more for an ISP and 
> less for a Hosting provider. It looked to me like Virtualmin and a few 
> of the Webmin modules left turned on for a user was sort of redundant 
> vs. Usermin. And it sort of is. However, back to the above statement, 
> Webmin is geeky and needs to stay geeky and 'my' users shouldn't be 
> allowed in there. Something sparked me to take another look at Usermin 
> the other day and what I found was rewarding... but not without concerns.

It is really designed for non-admin users to perform tasks like reading
mail, changing their passwords, uploading files and so. It would
actually be possible to configure Webmin to do almost all the same
things, but with more effort..

> I had yet another user wanting to do an auto-reply... simple enough.. 
> And these requests get really annoying after on again - off again - 
> change my message mundane work. From Virtualmin the task is really 
> geeky, go write a file, upload it to the server, call it from 
> Virtualmin... heck, a lot of our users don't know how to FTP and rely on 
> our developers to do all updates. Usermin is far superior in this 
> ability. So, on this latest request for this feature the other day, I 
> set up Usermin on the box containing that account and turned off just 
> about everything except for most mail functions. Usermin is still just a 
> bit too geeky for the Joe Average user out there but yet has the more 
> simplified ability to do the tasks that most of us sysadmins are dealing 
> with from day to day. Yeah, I could add some modules to Squirrelmail to 
> do these things... yeah, I could find some other interface to do these 
> things.. but darn, Usermin is so close.
> 
> I think Usermin needs to be looked at from the end user's perspective.. 
> something extremely hard to do when you're so far ahead of Joe Average 
> when doing the programming. The mail forwarding module is a good 
> example. First the name on the button... 'Mail Forwarding and Replies'. 
> Well, that really doesn't mention auto-replies? I know we have a big 
> need to keep the names of these buttons as short as possible, but 
> perhaps since we are already in the Mail area, "Forwarding and 
> Auto-replies" would suffice?
> 
> After clicking on this button, Joe Average is faced with "Deliver 
> Locally?" Yes, this should be clear, but they might just think this is 
> going to send a copy via snail mail to their 'local mailbox' at the end 
> of their driveway. And no, this is not far fetched! Then "Forward to 
> other address?".. Heck, I'm not too sure what this actually does.. Does 
> is forward all mail to another address, or does it also forward to 
> another address while still delivering to your local mailbox (inbox)? 
> And darn, there's no pop-up help file to get more information on this. 
> "Send automatic reply?".. well, this part is actually pretty clear 
> although it might should say "Yes, respond to all incoming messages with 
> the following automatic reply..." "Minimum time between autoreplies". 
> Hmmmmm.... this sounds really interesting... but I wonder just exactly 
> what it does? Seems like this could be handy to perhaps prevent a mail 
> loop? If I set this to 60 minutes, I would only get 24 loops per day 
> instead of as fast as the two system can operate. But then if I set it 
> to 60 minutes, is this the total for all incoming email or just any 
> particular one? If it is for all incoming email, that would only allow 
> 24 auto-replies per day which wouldn't work for most situations... 
> Hmmmmmm... And, backing down to Joe Average... very few even know what a 
> mail loop is and that they should do things like unsubscribe to mailing 
> list before setting this up.. or heck, go back out and create another 
> email account just for mailing list.... And then there's "Complex" 
> mode.. yeah... I could use this, no problem. Joe Average??? Whew!!! God 
> knows what would be created. I haven't found a way yet to turn Complex 
> mode off, but that would be a nice feature.

Hmm .. it sounds like I need to add some popup help to that module. To
be honest, I have trouble thinking from the perspective of a
non-Unix-expert :)

 - Jamie