Can't restart webmin [status 2]

Question

I've updated webmin, but now, it refuse to restart :

● webmin.service - LSB: web-based administration interface for Unix systems
  Loaded: loaded (/etc/init.d/webmin; generated; vendor preset: enabled)
  Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Sun 2018-07-29 09:30:29 CEST; 12s ago
  Docs: man:systemd-sysv-generator(8)
  Process: 1485 ExecStart=/etc/init.d/webmin start (code=exited, status=2)

  Jul 29 09:30:26 vps513135 systemd[1]: Starting LSB: web-based administration interface for Unix systems...
  Jul 29 09:30:27 vps513135 perl[1486]: pam_unix(webmin:auth): authentication failure; logname= uid=0 euid=0 tty= ruser= rhost=  user=root
  Jul 29 09:30:29 vps513135 systemd[1]: webmin.service: Control process exited, code=exited status=2
  Jul 29 09:30:29 vps513135 systemd[1]: Failed to start LSB: web-based administration interface for Unix systems.
  Jul 29 09:30:29 vps513135 systemd[1]: webmin.service: Unit entered failed state.
  Jul 29 09:30:29 vps513135 systemd[1]: webmin.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.

Can someone explain me what does pam_unix(webmin:auth): authentication failure mean ?

some more infos :

root@vps513135:~# uname -a
Linux vps513135 4.9.0-7-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.9.110-1 (2018-07-05) x86_64 GNU/Linux

Thank you :)

Answer 1

SOLUTION

I tried to start like this

root@vps513135:~# /etc/webmin/start
Starting Webmin server in /usr/share/webmin
Failed to open SSL key /home/sowdowdow/domains/sow.sowdowdow.fr/ssl.key at /usr/share/webmin/miniserv.pl line 4414.

The output is a bit more clear, and finally found a solution here.

Comment out the lines related to the borked server in /etc/webmin/miniserv.conf.

#ipcert_sow.sowdowdow.fr,*.sow.sowdowdow.fr=/home/sowdowdow/domains/sow.sowdowdow.fr/ssl.cert
#ipkey_sow.sowdowdow.fr,*.sow.sowdowdow.fr=/home/sowdowdow/domains/sow.sowdowdow.fr/ssl.key

Answer 2

Webmin doesn't support systemctl command. Instead of that please use the following command to start Webmin service.

/etc/rc.d/init.d/webmin stop
systemctl start webmin

I tried this command and I am able to start Webmin service on my server.