At this point, the virtual machine is running reliably on Ubuntu inside VirtualBox, and it starts automatically via Windows Task Scheduler.
Now I move on to the first major milestone:
Turning this Linux VM into a real web hosting server.
Before installing anything, the system is:
Ubuntu 24.04 running inside VirtualBox
VM started automatically via Task Scheduler on Windows boot
Guest Additions installed for stability
Static IP already configured on the local network
System accessible via VirtualBox console
At this stage, it is still just a clean Linux machine with no server stack installed.
Virtualmin is a full web hosting control panel, so it will install and configure
Web server (Apache or Nginx depending on setup)
DNS services (optional components)
Mail services (can be configured later or partially disabled)
Database services (MySQL/MariaDB)
System-level configuration for hosting
This effectively turns the VM into a full hosting environment.
First I update the system:
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
Then I download the official Virtualmin install script:
wget http://software.virtualmin.com/gpl/scripts/install.sh
Before running the script, I make it executable.
This is a standard Linux step to ensure the system allows the file to be run directly:
chmod +x install.sh
This ensures the installer can be executed properly as a program rather than just a raw fil
Now I start the installation: sudo ./install.sh
This triggers the automated Virtualmin installation process.
It will configure:
Web server stack
Required system packages
Database services
Control panel dependencies
Core hosting environment
The installation can take some time depending on system performance.
During installation, I keep an eye on:
Package installation errors
Service startup failures
Network-related issues
Whether Apache/Nginx starts correctly
Whether the script completes cleanly
This is a critical stage because Virtualmin makes deep system-level changes.
Once installation completes successfully, Virtualmin should be accessible via:
https://:10000
This becomes the main control panel for the entire server going forward.
At the end of this stage, I now have:
At this stage: