webmin and remote admin

@rosshenderson:

running RH9

what is the most common admin tools you guys are running? I'm using ssh and webmin at present but I see there is a VNC option. thought it would be a bit resourse hungry so haven't tried it yet.

also, when using webmin to install servers (notably dovecot) the install fails with very little explanation (ie "dependancies failed" is all I get) I can find no other entries in the logs anywhere. how do I find out what webmin is trying to do so i can resolve the dependancies manually?

Hey Ross - welcome to linode. First off, you'd best stick with SSH for remote administration. Yes, I suppose it would be possible to run remote X and/or VNC, but I feel you'll be quite frustrated with the slooowww performance.

I see you've chosen RH as your distro. Not to bash Redhat, but are you open to choosing another distribution? Out of the box, Redhat is quite difficult for new admins, due to the unruly nature of the rpm package management system. The biggest issue most people have with rpm-based distributions (Redhat, Fedora, etc) is that rpm, by default, is not able to resolve dependencies. It sounds like you've already run into that. You can get around this by installing apt-rpm, but that might be a bit more than you want to tackle at this point.

If you're open to switching distributions, I'd highly suggest you try out Ubuntu. Ubuntu is based off of debian linux, and as such, used debian's apt package management system. Unlike rpm, apt has full dependency tracking and resolution, meaning if you want to install package A, and package A requires in turn packages C and D, it'll install the whole kit and kaboodle for you automatically. This is very nice, especially for new admins. Also, Ubuntu has a very large userbase and very active support forums out of which you'll be able to draw much information. Lastly, Redhat abandoned it's free distribuation several years ago in favor of it's for-cost enterprise versions. This is why the included versions of mysql/php/etc are so old. You may have heard of the Fedora Core project - it is basically the continuation of the old free Redhat distro…it has more recent packages available, but still comes with the rpm package management system and all the difficulties it brings along with it. I'd guess that the only reason linode maintains the old RH images anymore is to satisfy the few users out there that need redhat to run some sort of proprietary softare that requires it.

So…I'm sure I may get flamed by the Fedora/RH users in the house, but I sincerely think that you'll have a better experience if you give ubuntu a try. If you wanted to just give it a test drive, you could even just shrink your RH disk image temporarily and create a new ubuntu image to test drive. If you choose to stick with ubuntu, you can then just nuke the old RH image and re-claim the disk space with your ubuntu image.

Anyway - I'm rambling now. I hope this information helps - let me know if you have any other questions.

-erik

Thanks for the advice. having become used to the restrictions of lycos VDS, I hadn't thought of looking too closely at the control panel options.

disk shrunk and ubuntu on it's way….

configuring sendmail is my bigest reservation with new distro's. took ages to get a decent (working!) config under RH after I switched from open BSD. before anyone says it… I know postfix is supposed to be easier but I feel sendmail is more established and secure.

thanks again.

Ross

@rosshenderson:

configuring sendmail is my bigest reservation with new distro's. took ages to get a decent (working!) config under RH after I switched from open BSD. before anyone says it… I know postfix is supposed to be easier but I feel sendmail is more established and secure.
I'm glad to hear that you're going to give ubuntu a try. Please feel free to ask questions here before you get too frustrated with things :-)

As far as sendmail goes, yes, sendmail may be more established, but as of late, it has taken a back seat to postfix and qmail, both of which are much easier to set up and possibly more secure than sendmail. Personally, I use qmail, but the more and more I work with it, the more I wish I had used postfix, but that's another discussion. There's more than ample documentation/howtos for both.

-Erik

As an long time sendmail user who converted, I recommend you take a look at Postfix.