Webmin missing? [Solved]

[sinayion]

Hi all,

I was looking at the Shoreline firewall/webmin wiki, but I noticed that webmin is no longer included in equo. Is there a reason for its removal?

Thanks

[Fitzcarraldo]

It was dropped from Portage a couple of years ago for various security-related reasons (with the Gentoo ebuild, not with Webmin itself). In August last year Gentoo user PhobosK stepped in and rewrote the ebuild to remove the concerns, and the new ebuild was then added to the testing branch (~x86 and ~amd64) of the main Portage tree (see Comment #11 in Gentoo Bugzilla Bug Report No. 348432 - New ebuild: app-admin/webmin-1.560). Since then it has improved further and is currently at version 1.580:

Code: Select all

$ eix webmin
* app-admin/webmin
     Available versions:  (~)1.560-r1 (~)1.570-r1 (~)1.580 {{ldap minimal mysql postgres (+)ssl}}
     Homepage:            http://www.webmin.com/
     Description:         A web-based Unix systems administration interface

You can read about the bumpy arguments in the Gentoo thread Is webmin extinct? and Gentoo developer Diego Elio 'Flameeyes' Pettenò's blog post There's something about Webmin. I think PhobosK was too hard on Hwoarang (Markos Chandras) in that Gentoo thread, but I agree with PhobosK's post in Flameeyes' blog, particularly a couple of points he made:

@Diego [Flameeyes]: I bet for the half of the time you’ve spent “testing” webmin and its ebuild wrong behaviour, answering all the bug requests for keeping it in portage, all emails connected to what you did etc. etc, you could have fixed the ebuild… Well.. of course that would not have brought you any “reasonable fee”… which seems to be part of the problem….
Anyway let’s face it… this is not a Webmin problem… it is Gentoo devs’ problem, lacking whatever you may excuse with… like time, desire etc etc…
And with removing this good piece of software just like that (sorry but the QA’s and yours excuses are just ridiculous)… especially without offering alternative… is at least unprofessional…

Please do not start the “if you are so professional why don’t you spend time fixing this… etc etc etc”
There is already someone that did some job on a new ebuild but all he gets is a “duplicate bug”…

@equilibrium: Anyone that says something like “a piece of crap” about a software so complex and widespread, whose developers have spent thousands of hours for improving, fixing etc… is not that far away from his own definition

You could file a bug report requesting the package be built using the new ebuild and put in the Entropy repository. If your request were to be declined you could install it via Portage if you wish.

[sinayion]

Thank you very much for such a detailed response!
And from the brief points you mentioned, I have to say that PhobosK and I would make great friends. xD

[Fitzcarraldo]

I see Webmin has been added to the Entropy repository.

[sinayion]

Yup, I put a request in and the devs kindly responded I haven't been able to download it yet, perhaps it will happen with tomorrows sync.

[sinayion]

Interesting... Webmin shows up on the package website, but I cant find it with a equo search. Am I missing something obvious?

[chasha420]

Sorry if this is kind of offtopic but I was interested in knowing that as a home user how much would I really benefit from using Webmin instead of a basic firewall like UFW? And would you guys recommend using webmin instead of UFW?

Also I'm not that knowledgable regarding gentoo but what is the purpose of the tool "eix"? I mean is it just to search for ebuilds or can it be also used as a mini package manager to install stuff?

Thanks for answering my n00bish questions :p

[Jomiel]

Hi there,
@chasha420
I never used webmin, but afaik it's more of a universal administration tool for linux .

@sinayion
Webmin shows up in my sabayonlinux.org repo. Are you using the weekly repo?
BTW: Nive Rainbow Dash you got there^^

cheers
Jomiel