18/03/2010

Importing UNIX users into webmin

After getting CUPS to accept my username and password, I moved on to the last root-only web interface standing, i.e. webmin.
Webmin's import feature is pretty sophisticated, as you can specify permissions for subsets of modules and users via the concept of webmin groups.
This implies that you first have to create such a group before you can import UNIX users.
Groups can be defined in the  Webmin->Webmin Users module, I called mine "admins" and gave the members every permission available.
I then converted my UNIX user to webmin, checking the box "Use same password as unix user in the future" and assigned the admins group.
Apart from the "create group first" point, pretty intuitive.

17/03/2010

How to stop CUPS from asking for the root password

CUPS has a quite restrictive allow/deny policy. Cancelling jobs requires the owner or root (OK, makes sense), for starting and stopping printers you also need root privileges. My root password is befittingly cumbersome, so I looked for some kind of CUPS sudo.
The file to look for is /etc/cups/cupsd.conf, which can be conveniently edited from the CUPS web interface's (localhost:631) Administration tab.

12/03/2010

NY = outer space

...at least according to wetter.com, providing data for the LCD Weather plasma applet. And yes, space is actually warmer.