It uses python-reconfigure[0] to parse the config files into syntas trees (similar to ASTs). Seems to be written by the same author. Either the author didn't know about Augeas[1] which aims to do the same things and has more parsers AFAIK or for some reason couldn't use it.

Edit: Here[2] is the list of Augeas lenses(parsers) -- it's pretty extensive.

[0] - http://eugeny.github.io/reconfigure/ [1] - http://augeas.net/ [2] - http://augeas.net/stock_lenses.html

I'm hoping it means the installation is non-destructive and it uses your existing configs, with no changes, as a base and then modifies them from there when you use the webui.

If that's true, it's poorly phrased.

It probably keeps them in its own directory and tells the program to look in said directory.

Then it has to supply its own init scripts (or units or whatever) to run separate daemons. Or take part of init's job and run and supervise everything by itself, which isn't a really good idea.

That's wrong.