I have been thinking about this for a while and every now and then I keep asking myself the same question: why are there so little effort on developing a web based GUI for server administration? I mean, I see plenty of them around the internet, as the most famous I could mention Webmin/Virtualmin, but not so much effort from the official Linux distributors.
I could imagine a dashboard where I could:
Install/administer LDAP accounts,
Admin an e-mail server
DNS admin
Configure Apache or Nginx
Install SSL certificate with CertiBot
etc…
Simple things which are usually a pain in the a** to do via shell. Today I have many text docs and how-to’s with commands and notes because I cannot remember how to do or how I did some things in the past.
I’ve seen that RedHat has been putting some effort on some projects like FreeIPA or Cockpit but it always looks that it lacks basic features or that I need multiple different projects to achieve some basic server needed functionalities.
I am not a full-time server administrator, so I would be happy to hear how other people feel in this matter, maybe it is just me who needs it…
Well, I’m no expert on Cockpit, but there are loads of plugins for it. I guess they would need packaging for Ubuntu first and then maybe make some meta packages if you want a specific set of packages for a specific type of setup?
I completely agree with you, by the way. Actually, I first asked that question back in 2006, I think.
Hello o/ I am by no means an expert here, but I do just about administer enough servers that this would be helpful. But I wanted to say that this could totally be a thing. The first thing to do would be to properly assess what’s out there It’s a bit of leg work but if you @jcbeppler, assuming you’re still interested, you @joerlend.schinstad, and anyone else, could identify a tool that already does the stuff you’re looking for;
or is close, then we might be able to get it in.
If it doesn’t exist we could see if anyone out there is interested in starting a project. If it exists but isn’t packaged for Ubuntu I’m sure we could find someone to package it and point the community at it to contribute, and if it exists and is packaged for Ubuntu we could point people at it to contribute and ask the Server team to assess if it’s something we could eventually add to Ubuntu.
It’s a bit of leg work but if you 
Intrigued, alright 