Configuring your Firewall for Webmin

Many operating systems block access to port 10000 by default (this is the default port for webmin interface), as they have a firewall activated as part of the installation process. This may prevent you from logging into http://yourserver:10000/ from another system on your network or over the Internet.

The simplest way to open up port 10000 is to use one of the Webmin firewall management modules, such as Linux Firewall, BSD Firewall or IPFilter Firewall. However, to access this you’ll need to run a brower on the same system as Webmin, and access it via the URL http://localhost:10000/.

The alternative is to login as root via SSH, and manually edit the firewall configuration file. On Redhat and derived systems, this is /etc/sysconfig/iptables, while on Debian it is /var/lib/iptables. The line you need to add is :

-A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 10000 -j ACCEPT

It should be added in the file just after similar lines which grant access to ports 80, 22 and so on.

Once this line has been added, you will need to apply the firewall configuration. This is typically done with the command /etc/init.d/iptables restart .

Alternate way without editing the iptables file manually (RHEL, CentOS, Fedora, Mandriva etc):

Run the following commands in shell. Write one after another.

iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 10000 -j ACCEPT

service iptables save

service iptables restart

Related posts:

1. How to install Webmin on CentOS, RHEL, Fedora, Mandriva, SuSE
2. Linux Hosting Control Panels