webadmin-list — Webmin users mailing list

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

[John H. <web...@ew...>]

Jamie Cameron wrote:

>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 :)
>
I just had to leave that comment there. ;) Yeah, you only have to deal with us dumb sysadmins that can't find what's right in front of them in the Webmin interface! We on the other hand, have to deal with the public who for the most part doesn't know the difference between POP, alias, incoming mail server and outgoing mail server.. and thinks 'email client' is a command not a program. "OK, I'll email that client of mine right away!"

Actually though, that is the bottom line. No pun intended.

And, in all fairness, I would really like very much to hear the 
reactions to my original post by other sysadmins using Webmin. I am in a 
unique niche myself which may be enough unlike what others are doing so 
that there is no justification to spend time on my wishes. Our clients 
are hosting clients, predominantly in the bed and breakfast industy. 
This means they are business owners, in a business that requires a high 
degree of specialty knowledge and many simply don't have the time to 
become proficient on computers. At the same time, bookings run at about 
80% directly from the internet with some reporting over 80% from online 
booking engines. Email is as important as water and electricity to these 
folks and equates to the person behind the cash register at a store. 
Many of them can make french toast to die for, or make the army turn 
green with envy when they bounce a dime off a properly made bed sheet.. 
but computers? So, yeah, I have to step back to view my ideas about 'how 
stuff should be', as I'm sure my opinions are somewhat biased by my 
clients as well. So, really, I do hope others will chime in with yes or 
no, that would help or not.

Again, with regards to Webmin, yeah, some additional help pop ups would 
be great, but I really don't see any of my users knowing what the heck 
to do within the Apache module. Well, I actually might have one, but he 
was a sysadmin in the past and got burned out. :) Hmm... maybe even two 
now that I think more.

I've looked at just about every module/package available and don't find 
anything that fully fits, or really even gets pretty close. When I went 
back in to look through Usermin again, I realized it was pretty close. 
Heck I even discovered that https://users_domain_name.com:20000 got them 
in! I never even thought to even try that until today. Now that's pretty 
neat! I don't have to look up which server they're on and give them one 
of my convoluted server names as the domain to visit. Easy for them to 
remember... And it is much easier to tune down Usermin vs. 
Webmin/Virtualmin. What I have left running in Usermin for my users at 
this point is

Change Language (might get used by a few of our clients and it's always 
good to be PC)
Mail Forwarding and Replies
Read Mail (great for clearing out that email that causes "My Outlook is 
stuck!" syndrone. Although a view oldest mail first switch would be 
nice. Yeah, the go to page ### works, but then an email comes in and 
interrupts the process and you're back on page one unless you figure out 
and then remember to use your back button)
Scheduled Emails (nothing like 'Elvis' sending you a message each month 
on the day sales tax is due.. or better yet, on your anniversary! This 
should bring back some memories for some of you old 'nixers!)
SpamAssassin Mail Filter (probably not a good idea.. but..... I'm trying 
it to find out.. another of those with no help and over the heads of 
most end users)
MySQL Database (well... who knows.. but for the ones that have it.. at 
least they can look at what they've created)
Disk Quotas (OH yeah.. hope they look at this... often!)
System Documentation (betcha none of them ever read any of this but you 
can't blame me for trying)

What is missing...
Add/edit/delete a POP account
Add/edit/delete an Alias

Now I know those are going to be tough without some tie back into 
Webmin/Virtualmin to get them into their virtual domain.. get the 
account tied to the domain name and still exist within the limits set in 
Virtualmin, like number of POP accounts and so forth. But what the 
heck.. I can wish!!! It's almost Christmas isn't it?

And....
And the dumbed down interface that 'anyone can understand' or at least 
almost anyone.
The hardest task is to keep it simple... or make it simple. Many times 
I've started a simple easy to navigate website and it grew.. and then it 
became complex.. and it was no problem at all to navigate... but only 
for those that built the darned thing.. Somewhere along the line the new 
visitor's view became confusing, they were lost and left.. This scenario 
seems to be the natural order.. and one has to interrupt the natural 
order to get it back to a simple and easy to follow flow.

So, come on you others on the list... What's your thoughts on what I've 
said? Is there reasonable need for these things or am I just off in left 
field here? I can take it.. I am left handed even. Am I the only one out 
there that would like to have these tools?

Thanks to both Paul and Jamie for your open minded attitudes.

Best,
John Hinton

RE: [webmin-l] Webmin webinar reminder

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

No, I can guarantee that a professional version like Virtualmin Pro
won't be announced at the webinar .. so don't worry :)

 - Jamie

On Sun, 2005-12-11 at 10:41, Thomas E Dukes wrote:
> OK, here comes webmin "professional" ..............
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: web...@li... 
> > [mailto:web...@li...] On Behalf 
> > Of Jamie Cameron
> > Sent: Saturday, December 10, 2005 6:20 PM
> > To: web...@li...
> > Subject: [webmin-l] Webmin webinar reminder
> > 
> > Hi Everyone,
> > 
> > Open Country along with Jamie Cameron, Founder of the Webmin 
> > project will be hosting a webinar on the "Future Directions 
> > of Webmin". There will be 2 sessions to choose from on 
> > December 13th. Click on this link if you would like to register.
> > 
> > www.opencountry.com/webmin/
> > 
> > Hopefully you will find this of interest.
> > 
> >  - Jamie
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > -------------------------------------------------------
> > This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Do you grep 
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> > -
> > Forwarded by the Webmin mailing list at 
> > web...@li...
> > To remove yourself from this list, go to 
> > http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/webadmin-list
> > 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------
> This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Do you grep through log files
> for problems?  Stop!  Download the new AJAX search engine that makes
> searching your log files as easy as surfing the  web.  DOWNLOAD SPLUNK!
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> -
> Forwarded by the Webmin mailing list at web...@li...
> To remove yourself from this list, go to
> http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/webadmin-list

RE: [webmin-l] Webmin webinar reminder

[Thomas E D. <ed...@al...>]

OK, here comes webmin "professional" ..............

> -----Original Message-----
> From: web...@li... 
> [mailto:web...@li...] On Behalf 
> Of Jamie Cameron
> Sent: Saturday, December 10, 2005 6:20 PM
> To: web...@li...
> Subject: [webmin-l] Webmin webinar reminder
> 
> Hi Everyone,
> 
> Open Country along with Jamie Cameron, Founder of the Webmin 
> project will be hosting a webinar on the "Future Directions 
> of Webmin". There will be 2 sessions to choose from on 
> December 13th. Click on this link if you would like to register.
> 
> www.opencountry.com/webmin/
> 
> Hopefully you will find this of interest.
> 
>  - Jamie
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------
> This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Do you grep 
> through log files for problems?  Stop!  Download the new AJAX 
> search engine that makes searching your log files as easy as 
> surfing the  web.  DOWNLOAD SPLUNK!
> http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=7637&alloc_id=16865&op=click
> -
> Forwarded by the Webmin mailing list at 
> web...@li...
> To remove yourself from this list, go to 
> http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/webadmin-list
> 

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

[webmin-l] Webmin webinar reminder

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

Hi Everyone,

Open Country along with Jamie Cameron, Founder of the Webmin project
will be hosting a webinar on the "Future Directions of Webmin". There
will be 2 sessions to choose from on December 13th. Click on this link
if you would like to register.

www.opencountry.com/webmin/

Hopefully you will find this of interest.

 - Jamie

Re: [webmin-l] Ramblings after reviewing the pole (poll / survey)

[Terry A. <hm...@oz...>]

>
>BTW, something upward from 500 million people are using windoze, so 
>m$ is doing something right.
>
Hi again,
	I highly suspect that it has much more to do with marketing 
than doing it right in most instances. While Windows XP is a vastly 
better OS than it's predecessors & has some nice features, it's still 
not an OS that I would recommend.
	I think any *nix variant is vastly better - with the addition 
of Webmin on that OS, server admins have a great tool. Webmin & it's 
cousins are excellent & can certainly ease the extended time & pain 
of certain tasks.
-- 

	Bye for now, Terry Allen 
	___________________________________________________________________
hEARd

Postal Address:
	hEARd, 26B Glenning Rd,	Glenning Valley, NSW 2261, Australia
Internet -
	WWW: http://heard.com.au http://itavservices.com
EMAIL: hm...@oz...
Phone: Australia - 02 4388 1400 / International - + 61 2 43881400
Mobile: Australia - 04 28881400 / International - 61 4 28881400
-----------------------------------------------
Non profit promotion for new music - since 1994
-----------------------------------------------

Re: [webmin-l] Ramblings after reviewing the pole (poll / survey)

[Paul C. <pcu...@op...>]

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. 

It's the trade off between complexity and ease-of-use.  Slowly, over the 
years, designers are learning more about the issues.  Also, conventions 
are solving some of the problems.  Each domain needs its own "language', 
common idioms that evolve.  Word processors were geeky and we now use a 
language around that area and they are orders of magnitude easier to 
use.  Graphics programs are also getting there.  I recommend Jef 
Raskin's book "The Humane Interface" as one of the best reads in this area.

At OC and Curly Bracket Software, the aim is to first make sure that the 
product is doing the right job and then, to figure out the best way to 
do the job.  Good specs and design principles are the necessary part but 
not sufficient in getting a product right.  The sufficient part is 
understanding user experience and collecting feedback.  I visited 
Oracle's usability lab and learned a lot (including how to have tech 
ency :-) ).

The elephant in the room is, do we intend to "dumb down" Webmin i.e. 
make in windoze like?  I don't think so!

BTW, something upward from 500 million people are using windoze, so m$ 
is doing something right.

> 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.

Help and pull-down panels of the right choices might be an aid.  (Might 
not!)

> 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.

That's why I want a usability lab of some sort.  Maybe we need a kind of 
experimental release program to try ideas like the above.

> 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.

Many of my suggestions (from my days as an analyst at Dataquest) ended 
up in m$ wurd.  I don't know if I should say, "I'm proud!" or "Guilty!" 
:-)  I do think that navigation and finding what's needed are real 
issues in anything that has 105 standard modules and another 225 or so 
add-in modules.

> 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.
> 
> 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.
> 
> 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.
> 
> Again, please don't take this as a request to have 'Usermin' and 'Mail 
> Forwarding and Replies' explained to me.... I'm trying to step back to 
> the end user's perspective or level of understanding. I do try to teach 
> our users just a little bit each time I talk with them.. Gee, I was even 
> able to teach one the difference between MSIE and Outlook the other 
> day!! Usermin will never be simple enough for him... but the interface 
> could certainly be dumbed down a bit so that it really is a 
> 'Half-Computer-Literate-User'min program instead of a 
> 'Semi-Geeky-User'min interface. And then, if POP account 
> creation/editing/deletion and email Alias creation/editing/deletion were 
> in there, three quarters of my tech requests would be covered.
> 
> I don't know.. maybe a 'Mailmin' system should be considered versus 
> trying to wrap this stuff into Usermin? Anyway, it seems that there is a 
> request for ideas or possible direction for Webmin. This is by far the 
> largest shortcoming we have on our systems at the moment.
> 

Hmmm, interesting!

> Again, please don't try to tech any of my example issues... I simply 
> grabbed some areas which were good as examples.
> 
> And as always, thanks so much for Webmin and all the hard work, as my 
> life is already so much easier... I guess I've sort of forgotten how 
> things used to be and really that three quarters of my tech work is a 
> greater percentage today than it was two years ago because 
> Webmin/Virtualmin is saving me hoards of time in the other geeky/admin 
> areas... it's just this simple stuff that users 'should' be able to do 
> themselves.
> 
> Best Regards,
> John Hinton
> 

Thanks again for the thoughtful input John!  Now (Jamie and) I have to 
figure out what to do with it!!

Paul Cubbage
Evangelist
Open Country, Inc.
http://www.opencountry.com/
http://www.opencountry.com/webmin/

> 
> 
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------
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> 

[webmin-l] Ramblings after reviewing the pole

[John H. <web...@ew...>]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Again, please don't take this as a request to have 'Usermin' and 'Mail 
Forwarding and Replies' explained to me.... I'm trying to step back to 
the end user's perspective or level of understanding. I do try to teach 
our users just a little bit each time I talk with them.. Gee, I was even 
able to teach one the difference between MSIE and Outlook the other 
day!! Usermin will never be simple enough for him... but the interface 
could certainly be dumbed down a bit so that it really is a 
'Half-Computer-Literate-User'min program instead of a 
'Semi-Geeky-User'min interface. And then, if POP account 
creation/editing/deletion and email Alias creation/editing/deletion were 
in there, three quarters of my tech requests would be covered.

I don't know.. maybe a 'Mailmin' system should be considered versus 
trying to wrap this stuff into Usermin? Anyway, it seems that there is a 
request for ideas or possible direction for Webmin. This is by far the 
largest shortcoming we have on our systems at the moment.

Again, please don't try to tech any of my example issues... I simply 
grabbed some areas which were good as examples.

And as always, thanks so much for Webmin and all the hard work, as my 
life is already so much easier... I guess I've sort of forgotten how 
things used to be and really that three quarters of my tech work is a 
greater percentage today than it was two years ago because 
Webmin/Virtualmin is saving me hoards of time in the other geeky/admin 
areas... it's just this simple stuff that users 'should' be able to do 
themselves.

Best Regards,
John Hinton

[webmin-l] Webmin Follow up survey

[Paul C. <pcu...@op...>]

The promised follow-up survey is posted at 
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=78761591785

Also, as promised, the results of the first survey can be viewed at
http://www.surveymonkey.com/Report.asp?U=145445138494

Thanks for taking the time, glad you really like Webmin.  Your responses 
are a great help to us.

One  of you expressed dissatisfaction with Webmin and suggested that
there  should be a refund on the book.  I assume the reference is to
Jamie's book (there are 5 books dealing with Webmin
http://webmin.com/index7.html).

We are willing to do what it takes to make Webmin work.  Please contact
me and OC will work with Jamie to get you running.  If we can't, or you
don't want to try, please contact me about a refund on the book.

Jamie is one of the most straight-up people I have met in this business
and that is a major reason we chose to sponsor Webmin.  Beyond our
shared technology interests, we share values.

Paul Cubbage
Evangelist
Open Country, Inc.

Re: [webmin-l] Users and Groups module - Problem with Samba "MachineTrust Accounts"

[William A. <waa...@re...>]

Kris Deugau wrote:
> William Arlofski wrote:
> 
>>That server is slated for an upgrade (the whole thing, not just Samba
>>- it is a RH 6.2 server)
> 
> 
> *wince* *shiver*  I sincerely hope this machine is NOT directly
> Internet-connected.

Of course not silly. It is a SAMBA server. :)

>>but it is difficult trying to coordinate a "good
>>time" (tm) with the client to take their main server offline.
> 
> 
> Tell them that this is a security-critical change, and the sooner it's
> done the better.

Been there, done that... Fortunately, they are very good about
understanding and taking heed when it comes to this type of stuff. I
think this one is more my fault because I am not looking forward to the
large amount of work it is going to take to upgrade this particular
system. It provides several other services on top of Samba file/print
services.


> You have likely spent far more time maintaining software updates and
> building custom backported versions of software for RH6.2 than it would
> take to set up a new machine.  

Not really becasue long ago (RH 6.2 era) when building systems I would
lock things down pretty good, turn off EVERYTHING that didn't need to be
on, and even remove the tons of unnecessary RPMs that were installed by
default. I'd also install an iptables script so that only the required
ports were even exposed - and only to machines or subnets that required
the service.

Next, all the important software on this server was built from souce
(kernel, samba, apache, openssh, openssl, proftpd and certain library
dependancies etc) so that upgrades of critical components have generally
been a simple download, configure, recompile, install, service restart
for the affected daemon.  That was probably the only thing that helped
me to keep my sanity.


> I recently had a glimpse of some of the
> potential headaches in doing this when I set up a RH6.1 box in an
> attempt to build some software that requires a third-party library which
> is only available to me (currently) as a compiled object file.  I
> discovered that RH6.1 didn't seem to have SSH...  and started trying to
> backport the openssh package from RH7.  It wasn't fun.

No kidding. I have played that game a bit on some systems so I know your
pain. Lately I have been deploying Gentoo bozex and have not looked
back. It gives me the best of both worlds (IMHO) - Ease of
use/upgrading, and building from source.

Cheers!

-
Bill Arlofski
Reverse Polarity
waa...@re...

[webmin-l] mail folders?

[<da...@so...>]

Hi,
What a fun week.  Back online again after rebuilding. A question I 
haven't been able to work out, I have virtualmin setup to put the mail 
box user's mail into home/public_html/homes/user/mail and have 
sendmail to deliver to the users home directory--mail. A blank mail 
flatfile shows up where it's supposed to but sendmail keeps 
delivering to var/spool/mail. This causes a conflict in usermin when 
saving mails because we get an error "failed to move file:write 
failed:not a directory"

Now what did I do wrong

Dan

Re: [webmin-l] Which webmin module sent this message?

[Barry <we...@i1...>]

Thanks Jamie and Greg for your prompt responses....

Barry


Greg Moeller wrote:

> Barry:
>  
> This is set in the System and Server Status module.  Adjust your 
> settings there.
> Cheers,
> -Greg
>

RE: [webmin-l] Adding custom categories

[Karthikeyan S. <ksu...@ad...>]

-----Original Message-----
From: web...@li... on behalf of Jamie =
Cameron
Sent: Wed 12/7/2005 2:47 PM
To: web...@li...
Subject: Re: [webmin-l] Adding custom categories
=20
On Thu, 2005-12-08 at 08:59, Karthikeyan Subramaniam wrote:
> Hi there,
>=20
> I am trying to customize Webmin for our requirements. I could find a
> document on writing custom modules. But i would like to add custom
> categories in the navigation bar. I was able to add these using webmin
> conf-> edit categories. I want to change the Icon gif images. I
> couldn't find any document on how to do this. I am trying to figure
> out by code walk through. It would be great if some of you can help me
> here. BTW, I am using MSC.Linux theme.

Unfortunately, the only way to add new icon images for categories is to
add them to the theme itself. With the MSC theme, you would have to do
this by editing the file mscstyle3/theme.pl and changing the line that
sets @available to include your own category code too. You would also
need to add an icon for the category to the directory
mscstyle3/images/cats_over

 - Jamie




-------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Do you grep through log =
files
for problems?  Stop!  Download the new AJAX search engine that makes
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-
Forwarded by the Webmin mailing list at =
web...@li...
To remove yourself from this list, go to
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Hi Jamie,

Thanks for the prompt response. I can make these changes in the theme =
files.=20

BTW, I have come across webmin framework very recently.The over all =
framework and its flexibility to add custom modules/themes is quite =
impressive. Good work.=20

Regards,
Karthi

Re: [webmin-l] Which webmin module sent this message?

[Greg M. <Moe...@ge...>]

Barry:
=20
This is set in the System and Server Status module.  Adjust your settings =
there.
Cheers,
-Greg

>>> we...@i1... 12/7/2005 4:53 >>>

I just received the following:

"Monitor on myhost.com for 'MySQL Database Server' has detected that the =
service has gone down at Wed Dec  7 13:45:04 2005"

I can't for the life of me remember where I set this functionality to send =
this message...pretty sure it was webmin because I had it sent to an email =
address that I reserve for webmin usage...(but this particular host has =
its own control panel too)

Any ideas where in webmin this came from so I can adjust the parameters?

Best,

Barry <-- fully prepared to go "Duh!" as soon as someone responds...







-------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Do you grep through log =
files
for problems?  Stop!  Download the new AJAX search engine that makes
searching your log files as easy as surfing the  web.  DOWNLOAD SPLUNK!
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Forwarded by the Webmin mailing list at web...@li...=

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Re: [webmin-l] Which webmin module sent this message?

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

On Thu, 2005-12-08 at 09:53, Barry wrote:
> I just received the following:
> 
> "Monitor on myhost.com for 'MySQL Database Server' has detected that the service has gone down at Wed Dec  7 13:45:04 2005"
> 
> I can't for the life of me remember where I set this functionality to send this message...pretty sure it was webmin because I had it sent to an email address that I reserve for webmin usage...(but this particular host has its own control panel too)
> 
> Any ideas where in webmin this came from so I can adjust the parameters?
> 
> Best,
> 
> Barry <-- fully prepared to go "Duh!" as soon as someone responds...

That message will have come from the System and Server Status module.

 - Jamie

[webmin-l] Which webmin module sent this message?

[Barry <we...@i1...>]

I just received the following:

"Monitor on myhost.com for 'MySQL Database Server' has detected that the service has gone down at Wed Dec  7 13:45:04 2005"

I can't for the life of me remember where I set this functionality to send this message...pretty sure it was webmin because I had it sent to an email address that I reserve for webmin usage...(but this particular host has its own control panel too)

Any ideas where in webmin this came from so I can adjust the parameters?

Best,

Barry <-- fully prepared to go "Duh!" as soon as someone responds...

Re: [webmin-l] Adding custom categories

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

On Thu, 2005-12-08 at 08:59, Karthikeyan Subramaniam wrote:
> Hi there,
> 
> I am trying to customize Webmin for our requirements. I could find a
> document on writing custom modules. But i would like to add custom
> categories in the navigation bar. I was able to add these using webmin
> conf-> edit categories. I want to change the Icon gif images. I
> couldn't find any document on how to do this. I am trying to figure
> out by code walk through. It would be great if some of you can help me
> here. BTW, I am using MSC.Linux theme.

Unfortunately, the only way to add new icon images for categories is to
add them to the theme itself. With the MSC theme, you would have to do
this by editing the file mscstyle3/theme.pl and changing the line that
sets @available to include your own category code too. You would also
need to add an icon for the category to the directory
mscstyle3/images/cats_over

 - Jamie

[webmin-l] Adding custom categories

[Karthikeyan S. <ksu...@ad...>]

Hi there,

I am trying to customize Webmin for our requirements. I could find a =
document on writing custom modules. But i would like to add custom =
categories in the navigation bar. I was able to add these using webmin =
conf-> edit categories. I want to change the Icon gif images. I couldn't =
find any document on how to do this. I am trying to figure out by code =
walk through. It would be great if some of you can help me here. BTW, I =
am using MSC.Linux theme.

Thanks,
Karthi

Re: [webmin-l] Adding Custom Modules To Show By Default.

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

Hi Minesh,
You can control which users are granted new modules in the Webmin Configuration module, on the Upgrade Webmin page. The second for allows you to enter a list of users and groups who will be granted installed modules and those added via an upgrade..

 - Jamie

-----Original Message-----

From:  Minesh Patel <min...@vi...>
Subj:  [webmin-l] Adding Custom Modules To Show By Default.
Date:  Thu 8 Dec 2005 1:40 am
Size:  687 bytes
To:  web...@li...

Hi,

Is it possible to add custom made webmin modules to load into the 
interface by default, as apposed to having to manually check the box 
under Webmin Users.

Thanks

Minesh


-------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Do you grep through log files
for problems?  Stop!  Download the new AJAX search engine that makes
searching your log files as easy as surfing the  web.  DOWNLOAD SPLUNK!
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Re: [webmin-l] Users and Groups module - Problem with Samba "MachineTrust Accounts"

[Kris D. <kd...@vi...>]

William Arlofski wrote:
> That server is slated for an upgrade (the whole thing, not just Samba
> - it is a RH 6.2 server)

*wince* *shiver*  I sincerely hope this machine is NOT directly
Internet-connected.

> but it is difficult trying to coordinate a "good
> time" (tm) with the client to take their main server offline.

Tell them that this is a security-critical change, and the sooner it's
done the better.

You have likely spent far more time maintaining software updates and
building custom backported versions of software for RH6.2 than it would
take to set up a new machine.  I recently had a glimpse of some of the
potential headaches in doing this when I set up a RH6.1 box in an
attempt to build some software that requires a third-party library which
is only available to me (currently) as a compiled object file.  I
discovered that RH6.1 didn't seem to have SSH...  and started trying to
backport the openssh package from RH7.  It wasn't fun.

-kgd
-- 
Get your mouse off of there!  You don't know where that email has been!

[webmin-l] Adding Custom Modules To Show By Default.

[Minesh P. <min...@vi...>]

Hi,

Is it possible to add custom made webmin modules to load into the 
interface by default, as apposed to having to manually check the box 
under Webmin Users.

Thanks

Minesh

Re: [webmin-l] Users and Groups module - Problem with Samba "Machine Trust Accounts"

[William A. <waa...@re...>]

Craig White wrote:
> On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 19:43 -0500, William Arlofski wrote:
> 
>>BTW, as always, I feel the need to thank you Jamie - and everyone who
>>has contributed - for Webmin and all associated modules.
>>
>>OK, Now that the buttering up is done with... :)
>>
>>Just kidding - The compliments are sincere.
>>
>>
>>
>>Recently, it has come to my attention that, at two of my clients running
>>Samba on Linux with Webmin as their "admin" interface they can no longer
>>add XP machines to their domains.
>>
>>Well, this is not entirely true... They are able to _ADD_ XP machines to
>>the domain the way they always have using Webmin's Users and Groups
>>module - and they are able to successfully _JOIN_ the machine to the
>>domain just like before.
>>
>>BUT, after the machine successfully joins the domain and gets the
>>"Welcome to the XYZ domain" message, they are not able to log onto the
>>domain and are told that the domain controller may not be available, or
>>that the machine may not exist in the domain.
>>
>>After doing some research I have found that when they create a machine
>>trust account as they always have in Webmin's Users and Groups module:
>>
>>- Create new user
>>- Username is the machine name with a $ appended to it: eg  xpmachine$
>>- Password is irrelavent
>>- Home dir is not important so we use /home/machines/machinename$
>>
>>...I see that the user (machine) account is created fine in the
>>/etc/passwd file and the home directory is created, BUT on inspecting
>>Samba's smbpasswd file (yeah... I know... moving to LDAP soon) the
>>account's FLAGS are:
>>
>>[U          ]  ---> A User Account
>>
>>when they SHOULD be
>>
>>[W          ]  ---> A Workstation Trust Account
>>
>>
>>As I stated above, even with the User Account flag in the smbpasswd file
>>instead of a Workstation Trust Account flag, the XP machine successfully
>>JOINS the domain, but is unable to log in.
>>
>>
>>Further testing shows that if I add a machine trust account by using
>>these two simple command at a shell prompt everything works fine:
>>
>># useradd -d /home/machines/xpmachine$ -s /bin/false -c "machine trust \
>>account via cmdline" -g machines -m xpmachine$
>>
>># smbpasswd -a -m xpmachine$
>>
>>The machine joins, and users are able to log into the domain. One thing
>>I noticed about this manually added user (machine trust account) though:
>>
>>In the Webmin Users and Groups module, the xpmachine$ account is
>>ITALLICISED in the listing while all other users (created with webmin)
>>are normal text.
>>
>>Any thoughts, comments, questions?  I'd LOVE to get this fixed so that
>>my clients are able to once again administer their own XP workstations
>>with Webmin.
>>
> 
> ----
> man smb.conf ( presumption is samba > 3.0.0 )

Hi Craig...

That machine is currently running 3.0.2a an oldie, but goodie.

> add machine
> Example: add machine script = /usr/sbin/adduser -n -g machines -c \
> Machine -d /dev/null -s /bin/false %u

Dammit! All the docs I have seen show  "add user script = ...."  Never
could get that to work 'on the fly'. Now I THINK I know why.   :)

man smb.conf on that machine shows NO "add machine script"... But I
think I ALSO know why. The smb.conf.5 man pages for this install are
under /usr/local/samba/man/man5/smb.conf.5 (which DOES include the add
machine script info) so there must be a leftover smb.conf.5 manpage in
the manpath from a previous rpm install... Sigh...

> Why would you just use a script and add machines on the fly?

Because all previous attempts failed. :(

That server is slated for an upgrade (the whole thing, not just Samba -
it is a RH 6.2 server) but it is difficult trying to coordinate a "good
time" (tm) with the client to take their main server offline.

> Why would you use a real home directory for a user that clearly would
> never need one? (-d /dev/null)

Umm, because it really doesn't matter.  Most times I used -d /dev/null -
Probably should have said that in my post as well.

Thanks for the quick reply. I'm going to implement the add MACHINE
script ASAP.

I seriously can not believe that I missed that. I always wondered how
others were getting that to work with the "add USER script = "  that I
saw posted all over the place.

Thanks again

-
Bill Arlofski
Reverse Polarity
860-824-2433
email: waa...@re...
jabber: wa...@ja...

Re: [webmin-l] Users and Groups module - Problem with Samba "Machine Trust Accounts"

[Craig W. <cra...@az...>]

On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 19:43 -0500, William Arlofski wrote:
> BTW, as always, I feel the need to thank you Jamie - and everyone who
> has contributed - for Webmin and all associated modules.
> 
> OK, Now that the buttering up is done with... :)
> 
> Just kidding - The compliments are sincere.
> 
> 
> 
> Recently, it has come to my attention that, at two of my clients running
> Samba on Linux with Webmin as their "admin" interface they can no longer
> add XP machines to their domains.
> 
> Well, this is not entirely true... They are able to _ADD_ XP machines to
> the domain the way they always have using Webmin's Users and Groups
> module - and they are able to successfully _JOIN_ the machine to the
> domain just like before.
> 
> BUT, after the machine successfully joins the domain and gets the
> "Welcome to the XYZ domain" message, they are not able to log onto the
> domain and are told that the domain controller may not be available, or
> that the machine may not exist in the domain.
> 
> After doing some research I have found that when they create a machine
> trust account as they always have in Webmin's Users and Groups module:
> 
> - Create new user
> - Username is the machine name with a $ appended to it: eg  xpmachine$
> - Password is irrelavent
> - Home dir is not important so we use /home/machines/machinename$
> 
> ...I see that the user (machine) account is created fine in the
> /etc/passwd file and the home directory is created, BUT on inspecting
> Samba's smbpasswd file (yeah... I know... moving to LDAP soon) the
> account's FLAGS are:
> 
> [U          ]  ---> A User Account
> 
> when they SHOULD be
> 
> [W          ]  ---> A Workstation Trust Account
> 
> 
> As I stated above, even with the User Account flag in the smbpasswd file
> instead of a Workstation Trust Account flag, the XP machine successfully
> JOINS the domain, but is unable to log in.
> 
> 
> Further testing shows that if I add a machine trust account by using
> these two simple command at a shell prompt everything works fine:
> 
> # useradd -d /home/machines/xpmachine$ -s /bin/false -c "machine trust \
> account via cmdline" -g machines -m xpmachine$
> 
> # smbpasswd -a -m xpmachine$
> 
> The machine joins, and users are able to log into the domain. One thing
> I noticed about this manually added user (machine trust account) though:
> 
> In the Webmin Users and Groups module, the xpmachine$ account is
> ITALLICISED in the listing while all other users (created with webmin)
> are normal text.
> 
> Any thoughts, comments, questions?  I'd LOVE to get this fixed so that
> my clients are able to once again administer their own XP workstations
> with Webmin.
> 
----
man smb.conf ( presumption is samba > 3.0.0 )

add machine
Example: add machine script = /usr/sbin/adduser -n -g machines -c \
Machine -d /dev/null -s /bin/false %u

Why would you just use a script and add machines on the fly?

Why would you use a real home directory for a user that clearly would
never need one? (-d /dev/null)

Craig

[webmin-l] Users and Groups module - Problem with Samba "Machine Trust Accounts"

[William A. <waa...@re...>]

BTW, as always, I feel the need to thank you Jamie - and everyone who
has contributed - for Webmin and all associated modules.

OK, Now that the buttering up is done with... :)

Just kidding - The compliments are sincere.



Recently, it has come to my attention that, at two of my clients running
Samba on Linux with Webmin as their "admin" interface they can no longer
add XP machines to their domains.

Well, this is not entirely true... They are able to _ADD_ XP machines to
the domain the way they always have using Webmin's Users and Groups
module - and they are able to successfully _JOIN_ the machine to the
domain just like before.

BUT, after the machine successfully joins the domain and gets the
"Welcome to the XYZ domain" message, they are not able to log onto the
domain and are told that the domain controller may not be available, or
that the machine may not exist in the domain.

After doing some research I have found that when they create a machine
trust account as they always have in Webmin's Users and Groups module:

- Create new user
- Username is the machine name with a $ appended to it: eg  xpmachine$
- Password is irrelavent
- Home dir is not important so we use /home/machines/machinename$

...I see that the user (machine) account is created fine in the
/etc/passwd file and the home directory is created, BUT on inspecting
Samba's smbpasswd file (yeah... I know... moving to LDAP soon) the
account's FLAGS are:

[U          ]  ---> A User Account

when they SHOULD be

[W          ]  ---> A Workstation Trust Account


As I stated above, even with the User Account flag in the smbpasswd file
instead of a Workstation Trust Account flag, the XP machine successfully
JOINS the domain, but is unable to log in.


Further testing shows that if I add a machine trust account by using
these two simple command at a shell prompt everything works fine:

# useradd -d /home/machines/xpmachine$ -s /bin/false -c "machine trust \
account via cmdline" -g machines -m xpmachine$

# smbpasswd -a -m xpmachine$

The machine joins, and users are able to log into the domain. One thing
I noticed about this manually added user (machine trust account) though:

In the Webmin Users and Groups module, the xpmachine$ account is
ITALLICISED in the listing while all other users (created with webmin)
are normal text.

Any thoughts, comments, questions?  I'd LOVE to get this fixed so that
my clients are able to once again administer their own XP workstations
with Webmin.

I am willing to provide any additional information neccessary...

Thanks!

-
Bill Arlofski
Reverse Polarity
860-824-2433
email: waa...@re...
jabber: wa...@ja...

Re: [webmin-l] mail queue deleting messages

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

Hi Mark,
A few other people have reported this, but I have been unable to re-produce it on my system :-(
Does this still happen if you use a different web browser (like mozilla instead of IE) ?

 - Jamie

-----Original Message-----

From:  "Obantec Support" <su...@ob...>
Subj:  [webmin-l] mail queue deleting messages
Date:  Wed 7 Dec 2005 7:01 am
Size:  894 bytes
To:  <web...@li...>

Hi

1.250 on FC3

if i select say 5 messages it brings up the button page ok.
if 14+ it tries to switch but does a server not found, back gives reload
warning, back again and at where i started press delete and the button pops
up and works.

Mark
--
Obantec Support
www.obantec.net
0845 458 3121
WebHosting and Domains
Nominet UK Member & IPStag Holder
CentralNic Accredited Reseller



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