Re: [webmin-devel] Virtualmin and mail server support...

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

On 11/Oct/2007 05:32 John Gray wrote ..
> Jamie Cameron wrote:
> > On 10/Oct/2007 15:43 John Gray wrote ..
> >   
> >> I just started using virtualmin, for the most part I really like it.  I
> >> particularly like the plugin support.  I was able to write a plugin for
> >> a few misc things we need when a virtual server is created quite easily.
> >> (I'd post it, but I doubt its useful to anybody but me).
> >>     
> >
> > Hi John,
> >
> > I'm glad to hear that someone else has used the plugin API successfully ..
> > hopefully it wasn't too baroque. I write a few plugins myself, but the
> > real test of an API is how easy it is for others to use :)
> >
> >   
> Hi Jamie,
> 
> I can give you a little feedback on the ups and downs of a newbie
> creating his/her first plugin.  First off having a template plugin would
> be very nice.

That's a good idea - I'll create one and link to it from the plugin docs.

> I ended copying a very simple plugin, then replacing the
> guts with my own.  The next hurdle was getting it registered.  I ended
> up running the create_domain.pl through the perl debugger and noticed it
> was getting the plugins form some config option that did not have my
> plugin listed.  I'm not sure what I missed when adding it through the
> web interface, but I ended up adding it to the config by hand.

If you have created a new plugin, to enable it in Virtualmin go to
System Settings -> Features and Plugins, and check the box next to it.
Also, if this is a new Webmin module, you might first have to delete
/etc/webmin/module.infos.cache so that it is detected, and in the Webmin
Users module make it available to 'root' or 'admin'.

> The last
> thing, would be hints on the debugging.  I eventually figured out figure
> how to get into my plugin quickly by running the perl debugger on
> create_domain.pl or delete_domain.pl and jumping to just the right lines
> (maybe this is short coming on my perl debugger knowledge, I can't seem
> to set a break point in another file).  It was also very helpful to
> include Data::Dumper in my lib functions file, and dump all the args to
> a file when my apis get called.  It wasn't very clear all what data I
> was going to receive.

Yeah, I find STDERR debugging with Data::Dumper to the best method in
Webmin, as often you are dealing with CGIs that are hard to attach a
regular debugger to.
 
> In the end, it works quite nicely.  I'm very happy with how much
> virtualmin is doing for me, and that its allowing me to extended it to
> handle my servers irregularities easily.

Thanks! If you create a plugin that might be useful to others, you can
post it at http://www.webmin.com/third.html

 - Jamie