Linux: Manage your server without a GUI

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Linux: Manage your server without a GUI
Filed under Linux.

Tux

The whole purpose of Linux is and has always been based around the command line. Unlike Windows Linux cannot operate without the command line. This is a plus. GUIs take up a lot of resources, so by taking this away we are leaving more resources for other tasks like serving web pages or whatever the task at hand.

Here are the steps that I take. We can change the default run level to 3 instead of 5. This will still enable us to enter “init 5″ into the command line just in case we want to return to the GUI temporarily. After you are done enter “init 3″ to change back to command line. Look here for explanation on Linux run levels. Then we are going to install Webmin so that we can administrate our server through a web browser. Often, I can acually do more with Webmin than I can with KDE or Gnome.

Install Webmin:

Download Webmin from here. Download the suitable package for your distro.
Install Webmin according to the instruction links on the left of the download page. If all goes well, you should now be able to login to your server with a web browser on port 10000. Ex. http://youserver.yourcorp.corp:10000 - Use the root account to login.

Change the default run level

Make a backup of your /etc/inittab file. If you mess this file up you will not be able to boot! If you copy it off to your home dir, at least you can boot into live cd and copy it back into the /etc folder.
Edit /etc/inittab with your favorite text editor. You should find a line like this: “id:5:initdefault:”. Change the “5″ to a “3″ without the quotes.
Save the file and reboot!

You now have an optimal Linux server with no X Server and more resources for server stuff. Enjoy your faster server!