as for the eth0 etc. they look fine.
sorry for the confusion, my error was I was looking/explaining from my own production server's view, which has no router (my internal and external are the same)

so you can skip that part however you must put your WAN IP in the module config as posted above. This is necessary for the DNS records. So far you did this manually in the zonefiles, the intention is that VM will do this for you, yes?

Further, assuming there are no bugs, virtualmin module is meant to create, maintain, change, and delete domains on your system, not webmin.

Once it's running correctly WITHOUT Virtualmin,
that sounds like the wrong approach, imo.
Virtualmin, again assuming there are no bugs, will create all the correct entries for your domains, postfix, dns etc.

Did you go to Virtualmin-system settings-recheck config? and gives it errors?

Thanks again, Ronald.

OK, I'll defer to your recommendations on using Virtualmin. If I get it to work, I can always view the underlying configuration through Webmin and see what's been done. So, let's go over the Basics to make sure I have everything set correctly.

First, in Network Configuration -> Network Interfaces, I have:

eth0 at 192.168.1.200, Netmask 255.255.255.0
eth0:0 at 192.168.1.201, Netmask 255.255.255.0
eth0:1 at 192.168.1.202, Netmask 255.255.255.0
eth0:2 at 192.168.1.203, Netmask 255.255.255.0

Next, in Network Configuration -> Hostname and DNS Client, I have:

hostname: server.mydomain.us
resolution order: Hosts DNS
"Update hostname in host addresses if changed?": is checked.
DNS Servers: 127.0.0.1 12.34.56.121 12.34.56.122 <- last two are my ISP's DNS servers
Search Domain: "Listed" -> mydomain.us

Next, I just re-ran the VM check. It passed all tests. The following 2 lines are the only ones that gave any info which looks "adjustable":

"Using network interface eth0 for virtual IPs."

"Default IP address for virtual servers is 192.168.1.200."

Next, in the VM Config section: "Default IP address for DNS records" is set to my WAN IP (12.34.56.78).

Next, at the moment I have NO Virtual Servers beside the three default ones that all point to /var/www/html.

Next, I have three Zones defined, one each for my Domains.

The .US Zone has the two nameserver definition entries:

ns1.mydomain.com IN A 12.34.56.78
ns2.mydomain.com IN A 12.34.56.78

The .NET and .ORG Zones do not have those two lines, but each entry in all three, that needs to refer to mydomain.us, does. i.e:

mydomain.net. IN SOA ns1.mydomain.us. admin.mydomain.net.
mydomain.net. IN NS ns1.mydomain.us.
mydomain.net. IN NS ns2.mydomain.us.
mydomain.net. IN A 12.34.56.78

All three Zones use 12.34.56.78 for all entries that use an IP number directly.

All three Domains resolve as of this morning, but again, all are being fed the pages in /var/www/html.

(I do know that I'll have to delete those Zones at some point, or Virtualmin won't let me define Virtual Servers that use those Domain Names.)

With all that said, I'd appreciate ANYONE telling me what I'm doing wrong. When I played with Virtual Servers using Webmin, I could get one defined that LOOKED like it should work, but got the webserver error that "I didn't have permission to access / on this server." (This was actually an improvement: At least it was trying SOME different path to retrieve index.html.)

Thanks in advance!

it looks okay although in your case I'm not sure why you would use virtual interfaces.
Apache would have all domains created by virtualmin on the 192.168.1.200 shared IP

is your apache from the virtualmin repo? it would be compiled with suexec pointing to the /home directory as where the "centos apache" is not.

and you are using the GPL version I assume and installed it as a module?

Per haps Eric or Joe can chime in here as well.

Again thanks, Ronald.

The only reason I setup the 3 Virtual Interfaces is because the Webmin docs hinted at doing so, and the tutorial I'm using (Perfect Server Setup CentOS 5.2 or similar) suggested doing so in order to put each Domain on a seperate IP Number. If I have to delete them I can, no problem.

Yes, my system is the CentOS 5.2 install as suggested in the Tutorial. And yes, suexec is compiled with /var/www as the AP_DOC_ROOT. suexec -V returns that info.

I'm grateful for any help anyone can give me. Since all three Domains *DO* resolve and point to the default Apache webpage, I know I have at least SOMETHING set right. ;)

It's far easier to get up and running using our automated install script found on the download page (http://www.virtualmin.com/download.html). While the HOWTOForge article is cool, and I'm happy to see folks tackling different ways of using Virtualmin, it's definitely not a good way for newbies to get started with Virtualmin for the first time. These are complicated problems with complicated solutions...and installation and configuration can be very intimidating. So, I wrote a big hairy scary script to do all of that for you. ;-)

Now that I've read through a bit more of this thread (long thread is loooooong! I'm still not really caught up), I'm seeing a trend: You're trying to do all of Virtualmins job yourself, and having a hard time getting it all right. Stop trying to do everything yourself...if you want to do that, you don't need Virtualmin butting in!

Virtualmin is perfectly happy to setup your interfaces for you--you just need the one primary interface to start with.

Virtualmin is perfectly happy to manage all of your Postfix virtual maps, your Apache VirtualHosts, your BIND zones, etc.

On this note:

The only reason I setup the 3 Virtual Interfaces is because the Webmin docs hinted at doing so, and the tutorial I'm using (Perfect Server Setup CentOS 5.2 or similar) suggested doing so in order to put each Domain on a seperate IP Number. If I have to delete them I can, no problem.

While I haven't read this tutorial in full, this sounds like bad advice. There is no reason (good or otherwise) for putting non-SSL VirtualHosts on separate IP addresses. Let Virtualmin manage your interfaces. If you have multiple IPs and will be using SSL hosts on more than one of them, you'll need to let Virtualmin know about the additional available IPs in the Module Configuration. Otherwise, put everything on one IP and forget that IP addresses exist at all.

Thanks for the suggestions, Joe.

I downloaded the install script. But as much mucking around as I've done so far, would it be better to just reformat the beast and start fresh?

And if so, what programs should I install from the CentOS DVD that I used so far (for god-knows how many reformats), in order to get me to the point that your install script would "take over"?

And yes, I *AM* trying to do many of Virtualmin's tasks, simply because I want to learn how to do it. My skills for Network Engineering are becoming obsolete, since years ago I decided to specialize in Novell (ok, stop laughing you all), and we all know where Novell went.

And no, I don't have multiple Public IP's, I only have the one: 12.34.56.78.

Since the webserver is sitting on my Home LAN, though, I *could* take advantage of nearly unlimited IP's on it if I need to. I set the webserver's one interface to 192.168.1.200 on the LAN, and can't imagine I'll ever get near 192.168.1.254.

Anyway, where do I go from here?

Your help is appreciated. Thank you.

if it's no problem to do a fresh OS install then by all means go ahead (i did at least 18 times in my trial and errors when i first started out).
What i did in the end is install centos on a really bare server minimum and let the install script do the rest.

the script installed the Apache, mysql and the rest as I skipped those from the centos installation. Once it was done, I got everything working straight away and could then finetune the virtualmin settings.

I think this was the best approach as until now I have had no serious problems.

suexec is compiled with /var/www as the AP_DOC_ROOT. suexec -V returns that info
that's wrong.

it should be

[root@sv01 ~]# suexec -V
-D AP_DOC_ROOT="/home"
-D AP_GID_MIN=100
-D AP_HTTPD_USER="apache"
-D AP_LOG_EXEC="/var/log/httpd/suexec.log"
-D AP_SAFE_PATH="/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin"
-D AP_UID_MIN=500
-D AP_USERDIR_SUFFIX="public_html"

let virtualmin install script install apache

A fresh install is no problem. God knows I've done it enough already. One more won't matter. ;)


I'll take your suggestion and go from here, sometime today I think.

Thanks again!