Some words on this topic from the WebAdmin maintainer:
1. The Version 5 WebAdmin will never be as fast as the Version 4 one. Why? Well, version 4 used flat text files for configuration storage. This has the benefit of very fast read/write access, but once you want to read and write the configuration from more than one place, you start to get locking problems. Thats why we introduced a daemon called 'confd'. It is a managed configuration storage that also validates and cross-checks configuration data. Needless to say, it is much faster to read from a text file than to query confd (via XML-RPC). Since confd stores the basic config definitions like networks and services, it must be accessed on nearly each page of the WebAdmin. Check out /var/log/webadmin.log in the latest versions, there is some output regarding confd communication. We are currently working on making the communication faster.
2. I'm surprised to get so much flak for the pop-up menu. My design goal was to reduce clicks. In V4, you needed one click to open a menu, and another on to open the page. In V5, you only need one click, without a reload. Sure, you could pin the menus open in V4, but if you did that with most of them, you ended up scrolling a lot (mouse wheel syndrome).
3. The amount of configuration options has increased - again. This makes the interface more complex. I tried to pack as much information as possible in the tables, without cluttering things up too much. The filters should help you to navigate through the maze. Displaying less information would increase readability, but reduce usability for "advanced users". I'm seriously thinking about diversification into a "basic" and an "advanced mode". [[[:)]]]
4.Good, finally some tips. I think the concept of the new tables is not clear for everyone [[[:)]]]
Use the filters! They make finding stuff very easy. Also, you'll work on a limited set of entries, which helps with large tables.
You can edit stuff by clicking on it. If you can't click on it, you can't edit it.
You can edit multiple things at once, as many as you like. Clicking ONE of the open "Save" buttons will save all open edited entries. This also works across multiple lines.
When viewing logs (without live log), use the "Download" button on the right of the local log files table, and link .log files to a good text editor on your management machine (NOT notepad!). Logs can get real large, and most browsers handle multi-megabyte text files by crapping out. [[[:)]]]
Well said Tom. I like the new design actually, the filters are a god send. I must admit the webadmin is slower, especially if you are not accessing it via a Lan.
However all in all, Job well done. One thing though is, why could the live log not be colour coded. It is just a tad hard finding the Accepts over the Drops
I did a CPU upgrade on my firewall (400MHz to 1.4Ghz) and I will say for me v5 moves just as fast as 4 did on the old processor. The webmin is differnet then 4 and takes a little bit to get used to but once you understand how it works I personally think it is much better. I especially like the grouping function. Makes me rules much neater. 60+ rules gets a little hairy navigating through sometimes.
My main gripes are: 1) Speed of webmin from remote sites, adminning locally is quite fast over LAN but from remote it's pretty damn slow. (Over a 512/128 ADSL).
2) The floating menu. You have to be too careful where you click, not as big an issue as 1) tho.
I like the functionality of 5 webmin a lot.
The post asking for colour coded ACCEPT/DROP is a damn good idea.
Having just spent two days demonstrating the interface at CeBIT, I have to say it works really well. Things are very easy to find (except I lost portscanning). My main conerns for the interface are:
* speed, particularly of large pages such as snort rules. This is even more of an issue when turning lots of rules on or off. Each one causes a reload. * HTTP proxy. The interface for profiles and content filtering is not intuitive. In particular a whole substription option virus scanning for HTTP is hidden in a tiny button labelled VP. But also the relationship between profiles and rules is not clear. * floating menus. They can be difficult to click, but it is nice how they save one mouse click and one page reload. Perhaps both options could be available and the "pin" option still there as an option.
Also, Tom, we've done a bit of XML-RPC programming ourselves (for database replication between systems). Do you think the DTD (or the XMl-RPC equivalent of the DTD) would be avaliable from Astaro at some time? Could we have the availity to hook in external configuration systems? This could be a very interesting application.
