Parallels Plesk Expand - 2.3 Administrator Guide

Parallels® Plesk Expand

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Contents

Preface 5

About This Guide ........................................................................................................................... 5

Who Should Read This Guide ....................................................................................................... 5

Typographical Conventions ........................................................................................................... 6

Feedback ....................................................................................................................................... 7

Introducing Plesk Expand 8

Becoming Familiar With Plesk Expand ......................................................................................... 8

What is Plesk Expand ......................................................................................................... 9

Plesk Expand Business Model and Operation Principles ................................................. 11

What‟s New in This Release ....................................................................................................... 13

Becoming Familiar With Plesk Expand Interface ........................................................................ 14

Navigation Pane ................................................................................................................ 15

Work Area ......................................................................................................................... 17

Action Bar .......................................................................................................................... 20

First Steps with Plesk Expand 21

Before You Start .......................................................................................................................... 22

Configuring Plesk Expand to Run Behind a Firewall ........................................................ 23

Logging in to Plesk Expand for the First Time ............................................................................ 25

If You Forgot Your Password ...................................................................................................... 26

Using Password Retrieval Option in the Control Panel .................................................... 27

Using XML API .................................................................................................................. 28

Using CLI API .................................................................................................................... 30

Configuring Plesk Expand 32

Configuring the Administrator Control Panel ............................................................................... 32

Changing Login Details and Contact Information ............................................................. 33

Setting Interface Language, Skin and Number of Items Displayed Per Page .................. 34

Configuring and Managing the Plesk Expand Server ................................................................. 34

Setting Plesk Expand Default Language and Skin ........................................................... 35

Setting Session Idle Time ................................................................................................. 35

Configuring Plesk Expand Installation With Other Parallels Products .............................. 36

Viewing Overall Plesk Expand Statistics ........................................................................... 37

Viewing Plesk Expand Logs .............................................................................................. 38

Managing Plesk Expand License ...................................................................................... 44

Managing IP Addresses in Plesk Expand ......................................................................... 48

Managing Plesk Servers in Plesk Expand .................................................................................. 61

Registering a Plesk Server ................................................................................................ 62

Adjusting a Plesk Server Settings ..................................................................................... 63

Viewing Useful Information About a Plesk Server ............................................................ 82

Organizing Plesk Servers in Plesk Server Groups ........................................................... 93

Managing Plesk Servers Installed in Virtuozzo HWNs ..................................................... 96

Managing Plesk Server Sessions Centrally .................................................................... 102

Managing DNS ACL of a Plesk Server ........................................................................... 104

Configuring DNS Recursion Setting for a Plesk Server .................................................. 106

Managing Backups of a Plesk Server ............................................................................. 106

Preface 4

Configuring and Managing Plesk Expand Centralized Services ............................................... 109

Configuring and Managing Centralized Mail Service ...................................................... 110

Configuring and Managing Centralized DNS Service ..................................................... 124

Configuring and Managing Centralized Database Service ............................................. 148

Managing Centralized Help Desk.................................................................................... 155

Managing Central Backups ............................................................................................. 160

Managing Central Migrations .......................................................................................... 174

Serving Your Customers With Plesk Expand 180

Before You Start Serving Your Customers ............................................................................... 181

Simplifying Setup of User Accounts ................................................................................ 182

Viewing List of Applications Your Customers Can Use .................................................. 219

Managing User Accounts .......................................................................................................... 220

Managing Plesk Domains ............................................................................................... 221

Managing Plesk Clients ................................................................................................... 254

Managing Expand Clients ............................................................................................... 281

Managing Expand Resellers ........................................................................................... 307

Appendix A. Troubleshooting 313

Using Health Monitor ................................................................................................................. 314

Appendix B. Interface Customization Options For Advanced Users 317

Building Custom Centralized Login Form .................................................................................. 318

Configuring Multilanguage Support in Plesk Expand ................................................................ 320

Adding Support of an Interface Language in Plesk Expand ........................................... 321

Modifying Interface Messages in Supported Language .................................................. 322

Removing Support of Interface Language in Plesk Expand ........................................... 329

Appendix C. Integrating Plesk Expand with Other Applications 330

Using Event Tracking System ................................................................................................... 330

Viewing the List of Event Classes in Plesk Expand ........................................................ 331

Configuring General Settings of an Event Class ............................................................. 333

Adding a Program to the Run Programs Event Handler ................................................. 333

Removing Programs From the Run Programs Event Handler ........................................ 334

Configuring Mail Notification Events Handler .................................................................. 334

Preface 5

In this section:

About This Guide ............................................................................................... 5

Who Should Read This Guide ........................................................................... 5

Typographical Conventions ............................................................................... 6

Feedback .......................................................................................................... 7

Preface

About This Guide

The purpose of this guide is to provide full and comprehensive information about Plesk
Expand, the hosting automation software that unites multiple Plesk servers on a single
hosting platform. The guide focuses on the core Plesk Expand concept of the centralized
management. It will familiarize you with the way to register Plesk servers in Plesk Expand, to
centrally manage these Plesk servers and objects registered on them (Plesk clients and
domains) and Plesk Expand objects (Expand resellers and clients).

Accordingly, all topics of this guide are organized on the basis of the Plesk Expand concept
of the centralized management as well, i.e. the centralized management of Plesk servers,
Plesk clients, domains, IP ranges, DNS zones, and so on.

Who Should Read This Guide

This guide is intended for hosting service providers, who have two or more Plesk servers to
manage.

For customers, who have Plesk servers installed on Virtuozzo, and for customers using
HSPComplete, this guide can be a reference point on integrating these products with Plesk
Expand into a single hosting platform.

We assume that the reader has basic knowledge of hosting business and of system
administration routines for the corresponding Plesk versions and operating systems (Linux,
FreeBSD or Windows).

6 Preface

Typographical Conventions

Formatting convention

Type of Information

Example

Special Bold

Items you must select,
such as menu options,
command buttons, or
items in a list.

Go to the System tab.
Titles of chapters,

sections, and subsections.

Read the Basic Administration
chapter.

Italics

Used to emphasize the
importance of a point, to
introduce a term or to
designate a command line
placeholder, which is to be
replaced with a real name
or value.

The system supports the so
called wildcard character search.

Monospace

The names of commands,
files, and directories.

The license file is located in the

http://docs/common/licen

ses directory.

Preformatted

On-screen computer
output in your command­line sessions; source code
in XML, C++, or other
programming languages.

# ls –al /files

total 14470

Preformatted Bold

What you type, contrasted
with on-screen computer
output.

# cd /root/rpms/php

CAPITALS

Names of keys on the
keyboard.

SHIFT, CTRL, ALT

KEY+KEY

Key combinations for
which the user must press
and hold down one key
and then press another.

CTRL+P, ALT+F4

Before you start using this guide, it is important to understand the documentation
conventions used in it.

The following kinds of formatting in the text identify special information.

Preface 7

Feedback

If you have found a mistake in this guide, or if you have suggestions or ideas on how to
improve this guide, please send your feedback using the online form at

http://www.parallels.com/en/support/usersdoc/. Please include in your report the guide‟s title,

chapter and section titles, and the fragment of text in which you have found an error.

This chapter provides basic information about Plesk Expand, its purposes, business

In this chapter:

Becoming Familiar With Plesk Expand .............................................................. 8

What‟s New in This Release .............................................................................. 13

Becoming Familiar With Plesk Expand Interface ............................................... 14

In this section:

What is Plesk Expand ....................................................................................... 9

Plesk Expand Business Model and Operation Principles ................................... 11

C H A P T E R 1

Introducing Plesk Expand

model and operation principles. This chapter will help you to:
 Become familiar with basic Plesk Expand concepts, business model and operation

principles (see page 9);

 Learn what software products and components work with and are managed by

Plesk Expand;

 Learn what new features are implemented in this version of Plesk Expand (see

page 13);

 Become familiar with Plesk Expand interface, its main elements and typical actions

(see page 14).

Becoming Familiar With Plesk Expand

In this section, you can get the general concept of what Plesk Expand is and how it
operates.

Introducing Plesk Expand 9

What is Plesk Expand

The main thing about Plesk Expand is that it extends Plesk™ functionality and works
as an add-on application for Plesk™. Plesk Expand cannot be used separately, it
requires at least two Plesk servers to operate.

Below we provide a short description of Plesk™ and Plesk Expand.
Plesk™ is a control panel designed to automate all aspects of a hosting service

provider‟s business and deliver superior flexibility and stability to your customers. It
enables users to create and remotely manage hundreds of virtual hosts through an
easy-to-use, intuitive interface, without in-depth technical knowledge of web hosting
technologies. The extensive set of Plesk features allows you to completely automate
product installation, enrich self-administration capabilities for your clients, and minimize
the number of support calls.

Plesk Expand is a centralized control panel for administering several Plesk servers,
including servers running different Plesk versions and operating systems. From the
Plesk Expand control panel, the administrator can manage all Plesk client accounts,
domains and other objects registered on different Plesk servers, without having to login
and re-login to these servers.

Besides the centralized login, Plesk Expand provides the following privileges:
 Centralized administration of system services - mail, DNS and database

management. You can assign separate servers (Plesk or sometimes non-Plesk) to
serve as central mail servers, central DNS servers and central Database servers.
These servers will be free from client accounts and domains, and will be configured
according to their specialization. When it is necessary to perform a particular task
(for example, receive Plesk client‟s mail), all Plesk servers in the system will
address the corresponding central server. This approach helps to balance the
workload in the system and to effectively manage these services.

 Plesk Expand user roles - Expand reseller and Expand client - allow the Plesk

Expand owner (administrator) to sell a number of advanced service offerings to
their customers.

 Expand reseller can sell a variety of hosting plans, ranging from reselling single

domains to VE and dedicated hosting. Reseller‟s capabilities depend on the
permissions given to them by the Plesk Expand administrator. The Plesk
Expand administrator can set up and sell several reseller service plans.

 Expand client can own and manage several domains (web sites) on different

Plesk servers through the single Plesk Expand control panel. This allows you to
offer customers a wide set of site application packages, regardless of the
hosting platform (UNIX or Windows). For example, a customer wants to host
one web site on PHP (which ties them to Plesk for Linux/UNIX), and wishes to
deploy a number of ColdFusion applications on another web site (which can be
hosted only on Plesk for Windows). Being registered as an Expand Client, this
customer has access to Plesk Expand control panel, where they can manage
both web sites without having to re-login between Plesk servers.

 Plesk Expand can be easily integrated with the provider‟s infrastructure through a

set of special tools:

10 Introducing Plesk Expand

 Plesk Expand events. Plesk Expand uses events for integrating with third-party

systems, such as billing or provisioning software. Using events you can make
Plesk Expand execute certain actions in response to certain situations in the
system. For example, when a Plesk client creates a new domain for their
account, you can configure Plesk Expand to send command “issue a bill” to the
external system, or to send an e-mail notification to the Plesk Expand
administrator.

 APIs (Application Programming Interfaces): XMl API, Remote XML API and CLI

API. Working with these APIs is described in detail in the Plesk Expand
Integration Guide at http://www.parallels.com/en/products/plesk/expand/docs/.

Introducing Plesk Expand 11

Plesk Expand Business Model and Operation Principles

Plesk Expand operation model is shown in the following figure:

Figure 1: Plesk Expand Operation Diagram

Plesk Expand user roles and basic object types are described below.

Plesk Expand Objects

Plesk Expand objects are Plesk objects registered in Plesk Expand, and groups of
such objects.

There are the following types of objects:
 Plesk server is a hosting server running the Plesk

Plesk for Windows or Plesk for Linux/Unix) registered in Plesk Expand.

TM

control panel software (either

12 Introducing Plesk Expand

 Plesk server group is several Plesk servers united into a group by the Plesk

Expand administrator. This is done for the administrator‟s convenience: usually, in
order to assign common rules (such as IP allocation policy) to these servers, or to
assign them to one reseller.

 Plesk client is a Plesk client account registered on one of Plesk servers. Plesk

clients can have access to the Plesk control panel (if the Plesk Expand
administrator provides this permission), but never to the Plesk Expand control
panel.

 Domain is a web site (virtual host) on the Internet registered on one of Plesk

servers. The domain administrator can have access to the Plesk control panel, if
they have a configured Domain Administrator account, and if the Plesk Expand
administrator grants them the permission to access the control panel. The domain
administrator cannot login to Plesk Expand. Each domain is owned by a Plesk
client, an Expand reseller or an Expand client.

Plesk Expand Users
Plesk Expand users have certain rights and privileges on certain Plesk objects they

own. Plesk Expand users have access to the Plesk Expand control panel, where they
can manage their objects and accounts, within the limits and capabilities provided by
their user roles and by the Plesk Expand administrator. There are the following user
roles in Plesk Expand:

 Administrator is a Plesk Expand user, who has the full rights to configure Plesk

Expand and manage all its objects and user accounts.

 Expand reseller is a Plesk Expand user, who can own and manage Plesk servers,

groups of Plesk servers, Plesk client accounts and domains. Resellers have
administrator‟s rights to all the Plesk Expand objects they own.

 Expand client is a Plesk Expand user, who owns and manages domains registered

on several Plesk servers, including servers running different platforms (Plesk for
Windows or Plesk for Linux/Unix), and manages them through the Plesk Expand
control panel.

Plesk Expand Central Servers

Plesk Expand offers a set of centralized services. A centralized service is a service
received by several Plesk servers remotely from a single central dedicated server.
Such a server (called a central server) is allocated for providing this service to several
or all objects registered on other Plesk servers. This allows you to reduce the workload
on each Plesk server, optimize the overall system performance, and helps to quickly
and easily detect and resolve typical service issues. There are the following types of
central servers in Plesk Expand:

 Mail server is a Plesk server registered in Plesk Expand, which operates as a

central mail server for several Plesk servers.

 DNS server is a Plesk or a non-Plesk server, which operates as a central DNS

server for several Plesk servers.

 Database server is a Plesk or a non-Plesk server, which operates as a central

database server for several Plesk servers.

Communication Between Plesk Expand and Plesk Servers

Introducing Plesk Expand 13

The communication between Plesk Expand and Plesk is provided by PSA API RPC,
the data and command communication software. PSA API RPC should be installed on
every Plesk for Linux server prior to registering it in Plesk Expand. There is no need to
install PSA API RPC on Plesk for FreeBSD and Plesk for Windows servers; it is
included in the distribution package. For detailed information about PSA API RPC and
instructions on its installation, see the Plesk Expand Installation Guide at

http://www.parallels.com/en/products/plesk/expand/docs/.

What’s New in This Release

Please see the Release Notes at http://www.parallels.com/en/download/expand/ for
your version of Plesk Expand.

14 Introducing Plesk Expand

Becoming Familiar With Plesk Expand

In this section:

Navigation Pane ................................................................................................ 15

Work Area ......................................................................................................... 17

Action Bar ......................................................................................................... 20

Interface

This section describes the basics of the Plesk Expand interface. Here you can find
instructions on how to navigate in your Plesk Expand control panel.

A regular Plesk Expand page looks as follows:

Figure 2: Plesk Expand interface

The main components of a Plesk expand page are:

 Navigation pane (see page 15)
 Work area (see page 17)
 Action bar (see page 20)

Introducing Plesk Expand 15

Navigation Pane

The navigation pane is located on the left side of the Plesk Expand page. In the right
part of the screen there is the work area where you can perform management
operations on a particular Plesk Expand component selected in the navigation pane.

Figure 3: Navigation pane

The navigation pane is divided into four sections: Plesk, Expand, System and Help &
Support. To expand or collapse the contents of each section, click the arrows in the

upper right corner of each section.

16 Introducing Plesk Expand

The Plesk section contains the following shortcuts:

 Plesk Servers. This shortcut takes you to the list of all Plesk servers registered in

Plesk Expand. There you can manage Plesk servers, register a new Plesk server,
reload selected servers or remove the servers you no longer need.

 Plesk Clients. This shortcut takes you to the list of all Plesk client accounts from all

Plesk servers registered in Plesk Expand. There you can manage Plesk clients,
create a new Plesk client, create a new client template. You can also suspend,
unsuspend, remove Plesk clients or refresh the particular client‟s data from the
corresponding Plesk server.

 Plesk Domains. This shortcut takes you to the list of all domains from all Plesk

servers registered in Plesk Expand. There you can manage domains, create new
domains, create and edit domain templates, manage DNS zones configured for
domains. You can also suspend, unsuspend, remove domains from Plesk Expand
and refresh a particular domain data from the corresponding Plesk server.

 Plesk CP Sessions. This shortcut takes you to the list of all sessions with Plesk

servers registered in Plesk Expand.
The Expand section contains the following shortcuts:
 Expand Resellers. This shortcut takes you to the list of all resellers registered in Plesk

Expand. There you can manage reseller accounts, create or remove resellers.
 Expand Clients. This shortcut takes you to the list of all Expand client accounts

registered in Plesk Expand. There you can create Expand clients (from scratch or

by transforming a regular Plesk client into an Expand client), remove Expand

clients, or proceed to the administration page of each Expand client.
 Centralized Mail. This shortcut takes you to the list of all central mail servers

registered in Plesk Expand. There you can create or remove central mail servers,

proceed to the administration page of each central mail server by clicking its name

in the list. You can also view the overall centralized mail statistics and proceed to

the list of all mail accounts (Plesk clients and domains) registered on all the central

mail servers.
 Centralized DNS. This shortcut takes you to the list of all central DNS servers

registered in Plesk Expand. There you can create or remove central DNS servers,

proceed to the administration page of each central DNS server by clicking its name

in the list.
 Centralized DB. This shortcut takes you to the list of all central database servers

registered in Plesk Expand. There you can create or remove central database

servers, proceed to the administration page of each central database server by

clicking its name in the list.
 Central Backups. This shortcut takes you to the list of all remote storages for backing

up Plesk servers, Plesk clients and domains. There you can schedule and manage

backup tasks for Plesk servers, Plesk clients and domains.
 Migrations. This shortcut takes you to the list of all migrations of accounts between

Plesk servers, which were initiated in Plesk Expand. There you can start a new

migration, view and refresh statuses of migrations, remove migrations, proceed to

viewing information about each migration task by clicking its name in the list.
The System section contains the following shortcuts:

Introducing Plesk Expand 17

 Server. This shortcut takes you to the page, where the Plesk Expand administrator

In this section:

Path Bar ............................................................................................................ 17

Working With Lists............................................................................................. 18

can perform system management tasks, such as viewing system statistics and

action log, editing administrator profile and login information, managing Plesk

Expand license and so on.
 Log out. This shortcut takes you to the confirmation page, where you can close the

current session with Plesk Expand.
The Help & Support section contains the following shortcut:
 Help. This shortcut opens the Online Help topic providing information about the

page you are currently on.

Below the Help shortcut there is a context-sensitive help area that contains a short

description of the user interface item. When you point to an interface element, you

can see its brief description and available operations.

Work Area

The Plesk Expand work area includes all interface elements located to the right of the
navigation pane. The work area displays the options available for the shortcut selected
in the navigation pane.

The sections below describe how to work with the following elements of the Plesk
Expand work area interface: the path bar and lists of objects.

Path Bar

The path bar is a chain of links indicating your current location within the Plesk Expand
system. It is located at the top of the Plesk Expand work area. By clicking these links,
you can jump up one or more levels.

Figure 4: Path Bar

The Up Level button located in the upper right corner of the screen is used to jump up
one level.

On some screens, the Refresh Screen button appears in the upper right corner. It can be
used to renew the screen you are on.

Below the path bar, you can see the title of the Plesk Expand page you are currently
on.

18 Introducing Plesk Expand

Working With Lists

On some pages, you may see a considerable number of items, such as Plesk servers,
Plesk clients, Plesk domains, shown in Plesk Expand work area. Such multiple
elements are always displayed as shortcuts organized in tables. The list shows the
items (on the Plesk servers‟ management page, it shows Plesk servers, on the
domains‟ management page - domains, and so on), and critical parameters of these
objects in separate columns of the table. Each item in the list is clickable; by clicking an
item you get to its administration page. Values in some columns are also shortcuts to
pages where these parameters can be adjusted.

The list of items can be sorted by any parameter. To sort items by a parameter, for
example, Client name (see the figure below), click the corresponding column title. The
list will be sorted by the client name in ascending alphabet order. You can change the
sorting order, ascending to descending or vice versa, by clicking column title once
more.

The example of such page is shown below.

Figure 5: Working with lists

You can perform the following typical operations on the items listed on such pages:
 Search. To search for a specific item in the list, enter the corresponding information

into one or several of the provided search fields, and click Search. All matching

items will be displayed in a reduced list.

Note: The search patterns slightly differ for different types of search fields. For the

ID field, only exact matches are shown. For example, if you enter “3”, only objects

with ID=3 are shown, objects with ID=33 are not shown. All the text fields use the

“any word” search pattern. For example, if you enter “John” in the Client Name field,

you will see all objects containing “John”, such as “Johnson”, “John Smith”, etc.
 Show All. If you are viewing a reduced list, click Show All to revert to the complete list

of objects.
 Customize View. Upon clicking this link, a pop-up window opens, where you can do

the following:

 Specify the number of items of the list to be displayed per page.

 Select the columns to be displayed:

 Select the check boxes of columns you want to be displayed;

Introducing Plesk Expand 19

 Clear the check boxes of columns you want to be hidden.
By default, all columns are selected.

 Migrate. To move one or several objects, select the objects in the list (select the

corresponding check boxes to the right of the table) and click Migrate. You will be

taken to the New Migration Wizard, where you should specify all other details for the

migration.
 Enable. To activate (unsuspend) one or several objects, select the objects in the list

and click Enable.
 Disable. To deactivate (suspend) one or several objects, select the objects in the list

and click Disable.
 Assign Selected. Plesk Expand objects or users can be assigned to Expand clients or

resellers, and also to central servers. To assign items, select them in the list and

click Assign Selected. Confirm assigning on the confirmation page that appears.

 Deassign Selected. To deassign items, select them in the list and click Deassign

Selected. Confirm deassigning on the confirmation page that appears.

 Reload. To refresh data about certain items in the list, select them and click Reload.

On the next page, select which data should be refreshed. This option might be

useful if you have applied some changes to these particular Plesk Expand objects

or users, and wish to refresh these data immediately, without having to wait for

Plesk Expand to do this automatically.

 Remove Selected. To remove items from the list, select them and click Remove or

Remove Selected. Confirm the deletion on the confirmation page that appears.

 Log in. To log in to a particular Plesk object‟s administration page in the Plesk

control panel, click the Login icon next to the corresponding object. It takes you

straight to this object on the Plesk server where it resides. The Plesk control panel

opens in a separate browser window. No login is required.
To proceed to the administration page of a certain item in the list, click its name in the

list.

20 Introducing Plesk Expand

Action Bar

When a certain action is being executed in Plesk Expand, the state of its performance
is displayed in the action bar at the bottom of the page. If you don‟t see the action bar,
click on the small triangle to the left of the Action Bar title in the bottom tray of the Plesk
Expand screen. The action bar shows actions recently performed in Plesk Expand and
their statuses:

Figure 6: Action Bar Screen

The status of an action can be indicated by one of the following icons:

The action was executed successfully;
The action failed;
The action is running;
The action is scheduled for execution.

Note: Actions are temporarily stored in the action bar. When the action bar is filled to
capacity, older actions are replaced by more recent ones. When you log out of the
control panel, the action bar is automatically cleared.

 To view the detailed information on a certain action, click this action name.
 To proceed to the action log, where you can view the list of all users‟ and system‟s

actions, click the Action Log shortcut.

 To refresh the data on the actions, click Refresh.
 To hide the action bar, click the small triangle to the left of the Action Bar title. To

show the action bar, click this triangle again.

This chapter describes the first actions you have to perform when starting to work with

In this chapter:

Before You Start ................................................................................................ 22

Logging in to Plesk Expand for the First Time ................................................... 25

If You Forgot Your Password ............................................................................ 26

C H A P T E R 2

First Steps with Plesk Expand

Plesk Expand.
This chapter tells you how to:

 Prepare the Plesk Expand server for work (see page 22);
 Log in to Plesk Expand for the first time (see page 25);
 Retrieve your password in case you have forgotten it (see page 26).

Further start-up actions depend on your business objectives.
For example, if you wish to register a Plesk Expand user account (an Expand reseller

or an Expand client) at start-up, refer to Serving Your Customers (see page 180) for
detailed instructions on registering a corresponding user account.

22 First Steps with Plesk Expand

Before You Start

Service name

If the service is not started

sw-cp-server

The control panel does not open.

mysqld

You cannot work in the Plesk Expand control
panel: neither log in, nor open any page in it.

expandtm

You cannot change any data in Plesk Expand.
Plesk Expand opens in a sort of a read-only
mode.

expandom

You cannot change any data in Plesk Expand.
Plesk Expand opens in a sort of a read-only
mode.

sendmail

All e-mail notifications are disabled in Plesk
Expand. The password retrieval option on the
login screen is unavailable.

 Before you start working with Plesk Expand, perform the following steps:

1 Install the Plesk Expand software.

For details about installation and installation instructions, refer to Plesk Expand

Installation Guide at http://www.parallels.com/en/products/plesk/expand/docs/.
2 When Plesk Expand is installed, make sure that:

 You have at least two Plesk servers of version 8.1 or later, which you are going

to manage with Plesk Expand.

 You have PSA API RPC installed on the Plesk servers to enable communication

between them and Plesk Expand.
For detailed information about PSA API RPC and its installation instructions,

refer to Plesk Expand Installation Guide at

http://www.parallels.com/en/products/plesk/expand/docs/.

 You have all the services necessary for the operation of Plesk Expand started

on the machine Plesk Expand is installed on.
The following table lists the necessary services and describes what happens if

they are not started:

First Steps with Plesk Expand 23

Tip: You may check the status of these services in the console of the server,

Ports

To/from, comments

Protocol

8442

from all hosts, from which users will access
the Plesk Expand control panel

TCP
8443, 22 (SSH)

to every Plesk server in the system

TCP

8443, 22 (SSH)

to every central mail server

TCP

8441, 22 (SSH)

to every central DNS server

TCP

Ports

To/from, comments

Protocol

22 (SSH)

from Plesk Expand server

TCP

8443

from Plesk Expand server

TCP

where Plesk Expand is installed, by issuing a command

service <service_name> {status|stop|start}

or
/etc/init.d/<service_name> {status|stop|start}

 You properly configured the DNS zones for all the hosts, including Plesk

servers, Central Mail servers, central DNS servers, and the Plesk Expand host.
Plesk Expand might use the DNS lookup to resolve a hostname to an IP, and
reverse lookup to resolve an IP to a hostname.

Note: Pay special attention to the configuration of DNS zones of a Central Mail

server. If the PTR record for this server's IP points to the wrong host name,
you will not be able to manage the Central Mail server.

 You properly configured the firewall.

If the firewall is blocking port #8442, you cannot open the Plesk Expand control
panel. For detailed instructions on adjusting firewall settings, refer to Configuring
Plesk Expand to Run Behind a Firewall (see page 23).

After all the above preparations are made, you may log in to Plesk Expand (see

page 25).

Configuring Plesk Expand to Run Behind a Firewall

The main idea of Plesk Expand is to unite multiple Plesk servers, including central
servers, into a single hosting platform. Therefore, server communication issues must
be observed very carefully, both for the main Plesk Expand server and for other
servers (Plesk and non-Plesk) operating in the system.

Below is the list of ports which must be open on various types of servers in the system,
in order to enable correct operation of Plesk Expand and its services. Please make
sure that the firewall is configured accordingly.

On each Plesk Expand server:

On each Plesk server:

24 First Steps with Plesk Expand

8443

from the central mail server this Plesk server
is assigned to (if assigned to any)

TCP

53 (DNS)

from EVERY central DNS server this Plesk
server is assigned to (if assigned to any).

TCP

For more details about configuring communication settings of Plesk servers, refer to

Ports

To/from, comments

Protocol

8443

from Plesk Expand server

TCP

8443

from every Plesk server assigned to this
central mail server (if there are any)

TCP
22 (SSH)

from Plesk Expand

TCP

Ports

To/from, comments

Protocol

8441

from Plesk Expand

TCP

22 (SSH)

from Plesk Expand

TCP

53 (DNS)

from all Internet hosts, which are going to
use its services

53 (DNS)

to all external DNS servers, which will be
communicating with this DNS server
(depends on the DNS zones configuration),
including the root server

TCP
53 (DNS)

from all external DNS servers, which will be
communicating with DNS server (including,
for example, DNS registrars)

TCP
53 (DNS)

to all the Plesk servers assigned to this DNS
server (if there are any)

TCP

Plesk documentation.

On each server with central mail server installed:

On each server with the central DNS server installed:

Note: Please make sure that the DNS and the reverse DNS zones for all the hosts
including Plesk servers, Central Mail servers, Central DNS servers, and Plesk Expand
host, are configured properly.

First Steps with Plesk Expand 25

Logging in to Plesk Expand for the First
Time

 To log in to Plesk Expand for the first time:

1 Open your browser and enter the URL of the following pattern:

https://expandhost.domain:8442

The URL consists of the following elements:

 https://

The secure protocol used to connect to your server.

 expandhost.domain

The domain name of the server your Plesk Expand is installed on.

 8442

The port used to connect to your server.

2 Provide the default Plesk Expand login details:

 Login

Use [e-mail] as the login.

 Password

Use setup as the password for your first login to Plesk Expand.

 Interface language

Select an interface language for your Plesk Expand control panel.

3 Click Login.
4 After your first login to Plesk Expand, the Parallels License

Agreement page opens. Read the License Agreement carefully and

perform the following steps:

1. Select the check box next to I agree to the terms of this license agreement, if you
agree with the terms of the Agreement.

2. Select the check box next to Do not show it again, if you do not want this license
agreement to appear each time you log in to Plesk Expand.

3. Click Accept to accept the terms of this agreement.

5 On the Preferences screen which opens, change your default login

details:

 Enter your new login. The login needs not necessarily be an e-mail address. It

can be any word or alphanumeric sequence of 5 to 20 characters; the first
character must be a letter. You can use Latin letters, hyphenations and
underlines in the password. Do not use quotes, spaces or national alphabet
characters.

 Enter your e-mail address. Make sure this is a valid e-mail address, as it will be

used for receiving e-mail notifications of Plesk Expand events.

26 First Steps with Plesk Expand

 Enter your new password. A password must be from 5 to 14 characters long.

You can use Latin letters, hyphenations and underlines in the password. Do not
use quotes, spaces and national alphabet characters.

Tip: For security purposes, we strongly recommend that you change the default

login and password.
If later you forget your password, you will be able to find it out. For details,
refer to If You Forget Your Password (see page 26).

 Retype your new password.

Note: If you leave the New password and Retype password fields blank, the

password will not be changed.

6 Click OK to submit the new login details.

Now, you are logged in to the Plesk Expand control panel for the first time, with
your own login details.

If You Forgot Your Password

If you accidentally forgot your password, you may use the following ways to find it out:
 Use the password retrieval option available on the login screen.

This option lets you receive your password via e-mail. It is easy and convenient,
requiring no special technical skills.

 Use XML API.

This option lets you find out your password using XML API. This option is for more
advanced users familiar with XML API.

 Use CLI API.

This options lets you find out your password using the command line interface
(CLI). Use it if you are familiar with CLI API.

Note: Password retrieval is available only for the Plesk Expand administrator, Expand
resellers and Expand clients. Passwords of Plesk clients or domain administrators are
not retrieved.

First Steps with Plesk Expand 27

Using Password Retrieval Option in the Control Panel

The password retrieval option lets you receive your password to your e-mail address.

Important: Sending the administrator password by e-mail is highly insecure.

 To find out the password using this option:
1 Open the login screen:

 If you are not presently logged in to the Plesk Expand control panel, enter the

URL of your Plesk Expand in a browser.

 If you are presently logged in to the Plesk Expand control panel, click Log Out in

the navigation pane.

2 On the login screen, click Forgot your password?.
3 Enter your login and e-mail address into the Login and E-mail fields

respectively.

4 Click OK.

28 First Steps with Plesk Expand

Using XML API

This option is for more advanced users and requires being familiar with XML API.

 To find out the password with the help of the XML API:
1 Open the corresponding part of the XML API documentation (XSD or

HTML).

In this case, Expand Operators > Config Operator.
XSD is included in the plesk-expand-x.x-sdk.zip that can be found at the

Parallels web site (http://www.parallels.com/en/download/expand/).

2 Search for the object you need.

In this case, Person.

3 Search for a corresponding operation and its parameters:

get->filter->id=1 (the user with ID 1 always is the administrator).

The following packet is received as a result:

<packet version=”1.0.3.7”>
<person>
<get>
<filter>
<id>1</id>
</filter>
</get>
</person>
</packet>

4 Run the Expand config operator:

/usr/local/expand/sbin/exp_expand_config

The operator waits for the input from the STDIN of the XML packet.

5 When the XML packet is received, put it by forwarding the stream

from the file or straight to STDIN.

If the operator worked fine, it outputs (STDOUT) the XML packet with the call result:

<?xml version=”1.0” encoding=”UTF-8” standalone=”no” ?>
<packet version=”1.0.3.5”>
<person>
<get>
<result>
<status>ok</status>
<id>1</id>
<data>
<login>admin</login>
<password>setup</password>
<email>[e-mail]</email>
</data>
</result>
</get>
</person>
</packet>

6 Extract the information you need from this STDOUT:

<login>admin</login>

First Steps with Plesk Expand 29

<password>setup</password>

For more information on how to work with the Plesk Expand API see the Plesk Expand
Integration Guide at http://www.parallels.com/en/products/plesk/expand/docs/.

30 First Steps with Plesk Expand

Using CLI API

The procedure of using CLI API to find out your forgotten password is slightly different
from using XML API.

 To find the password using CLI API:
1 Open the corresponding part of the XML API documentation (XSD or

HTML).

In this case, Expand Operators > Config Operator.
XSD is included in the plesk-expand-x.x-sdk.zip that can be found at the

Parallels web site (http://www.parallels.com/en/download/expand/).

2 Search for the object you need.

In this case, Person.

3 Search for a corresponding operation and its parameters:

get->filter->id=1 (user with ID 1 always is the administrator).
The following packet is received as a result:

<packet version=”1.0.3.7”>
<person>
<get>
<filter>
<id>1</id>
</filter>
</get>
</person>
</packet>

4 Convert the received XML packet into the CLI.

For details, see the Plesk Expand Integration Guide here
(http://www.parallels.com/en/products/plesk/expand/docs/). As a result, we get:

person get filter id=1.

5 Run the Expand config operator with these parameters:

/usr/local/expand/sbin/exp_expand_config person get filter
id=1

If the operator worked fine, it outputs (STDOUT) the XML packet with the call result:

<?xml version=”1.0” encoding=”UTF-8” standalone=”no” ?>
<packet version=”1.0.3.5”>
<person>
<get>
<result>
<status>ok</status>
<id>1</id>
<data>
<login>admin</login>
<password>setup</password>
<email>[e-mail]</email>
</data>
</result>
</get>