Installing Webmin on Ubuntu Server 10.04 LTS (Lucid)

I had some trouble installing Webmin 1.510 on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Server (aka Lucid). The problem is that Webmin uses a deprecated Perl module (a wrapper around Digest::MD5 for users of an ancient MD5 library) and both Debian and Ubuntu refuse to put it back into their respective repositories. Entirely within their rights, of course, but not so good for us weekend admins who want a painless install process.

Okay, so let’s get to work. I’m installing Webmin 1.510 via the remaining Debian packages.
Install the (easy) dependencies

Run this from a terminal. Expect some trouble from ‘libmd5-perl’.

$ sudo aptitude -y install perl libnet-ssleay-perl openssl libauthen-pam-perl libpam-runtime libio-pty-perl libmd5-perl apt-show-versions libapt-pkg-perl

You should find an error like this:

Couldn't find any package whose name or description matched "libmd5-perl"

The reason for this is that ‘libmd5-perl’ is persona non grata at both Debian and Ubuntu, as mentioned.
Install the deprecated dependencies

Download the libmd5-perl deb file and install it manually:
Open a browser and get the newest libmd5-perl package (from 2004 – lol)

http://ftp.debian.org/pool/main/libm/libmd5-perl/

The likely package is named: libmd5-perl_2.03-1_all.deb

so we download it and install it:

kelvin@example.com:~$ wget http://ftp.debian.org/pool/main/libm/libmd5-perl/libmd5-perl_2.03-1_all.deb
--2010-05-22 19:50:45-- http://ftp.debian.org/pool/main/libm/libmd5-perl/libmd5-perl_2.03-1_all.deb
Resolving ftp.debian.org... 130.89.149.226, 2001:610:1908:a000::149:226
Connecting to ftp.debian.org|130.89.149.226|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 5700 (5.6K) [application/x-debian-package]
Saving to: `libmd5-perl_2.03-1_all.deb'

100%[=======================================================================>] 5,700 30.3K/s in 0.2s

2010-05-22 19:50:46 (30.3 KB/s) - `libmd5-perl_2.03-1_all.deb' saved [5700/5700]

kelvin@example.com:~$ sudo dpkg -i libmd5-perl_2.03-1_all.deb
Selecting previously deselected package libmd5-perl.
(Reading database ... 50494 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking libmd5-perl (from libmd5-perl_2.03-1_all.deb) ...
Setting up libmd5-perl (2.03-1) ...
Processing triggers for man-db ...
kelvin@example.com:~$

Install Webmin

The dependencies should all be installed now. We can download the Webmin deb package from Sourceforge.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/webadmin/files/

Use the most recent deb package. In my case it was ‘webmin_1.510-2_all.deb‘

Sourceforge will generate a link for you to use from their web site. My link was:

kelvin@example.com:~$ wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/webadmin/webmin/1.510/webmin_1.510-2_all.deb?use_mirror=cdnetworks-us-1
--2010-05-22 19:53:44-- http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/webadmin/webmin/1.510/webmin_1.510-2_all.deb?use_mirror=cdnetworks-us-1
Resolving downloads.sourceforge.net... 216.34.181.59
Connecting to downloads.sourceforge.net|216.34.181.59|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Found
Location: http://cdnetworks-us-1.dl.sourceforge.net/project/webadmin/webmin/1.510/webmin_1.510-2_all.deb [following]
--2010-05-22 19:53:44-- http://cdnetworks-us-1.dl.sourceforge.net/project/webadmin/webmin/1.510/webmin_1.510-2_all.deb
Resolving cdnetworks-us-1.dl.sourceforge.net... 174.35.19.11
Connecting to cdnetworks-us-1.dl.sourceforge.net|174.35.19.11|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 14504260 (14M) [application/octet-stream]
Saving to: `webmin_1.510-2_all.deb'

100%[===================================================================>] 14,504,260 512K/s in 21s

2010-05-22 19:54:06 (664 KB/s) - `webmin_1.510-2_all.deb' saved [14504260/14504260]

kelvin@example.com:~$ sudo dpkg -i webmin_1.510-2_all.deb
Selecting previously deselected package webmin.
(Reading database ... 50500 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking webmin (from webmin_1.510-2_all.deb) ...
Setting up webmin (1.510-2) ...
Webmin install complete. You can now login to https://example.com:10000/
as root with your root password, or as any user who can use sudo
to run commands as root.

Processing triggers for ureadahead ...
ureadahead will be reprofiled on next reboot

You should now be able to visit your webmin login page on port 10000 (use your own IP number):

http://192.168.0.5:10000/

Ideally, the Webmin gurus will refactor the old MD5 code dependencies, but this seems to work fine for now.