Parallels Plesk Panel Client's Guide
Parallels® Plesk Panel
Copyright Notice
ISBN: N/A
Parallels
660 SW 39th Street
Suite 205
Renton, Washington 98057
USA
Phone: +1 (425) 282 6400
Fax: +1 (425) 282 6444
© Copyright 1999-2009,
Parallels, Inc.
All rights reserved
Distribution of this work or derivative of this work in any form is prohibited unless prior written
permission is obtained from the copyright holder.
Patented technology protected by U.S.Patents 7,328,225; 7,325,017; 7,293,033; 7,099,948;
7,076,633.
Patents pending in the U.S.
Product and service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.
Contents
Preface 7
Who Should Read This Guide ....................................................................................................... 7
Typographical Conventions ........................................................................................................... 7
Feedback ....................................................................................................................................... 8
Getting Started 9
Logging In to Plesk ...................................................................................................................... 10
If You Forgot Your Password ............................................................................................ 10
Becoming Familiar with Plesk's Interface .................................................................................... 11
Items in the Desktop View ................................................................................................. 12
Items in the Standard View ............................................................................................... 12
Changing Your Contact Information and Password .................................................................... 13
Customizing Your Control Panel 15
Setting Up Global Account .......................................................................................................... 16
Creating A Global Account ................................................................................................ 18
Connecting Local Accounts To Your Global Account ....................................................... 18
Switching Between Accounts ............................................................................................ 19
Changing Global Account Password ................................................................................ 19
Disconnecting Local Accounts From Global Account ....................................................... 19
Customizing Your Control Panel in the Standard View ............................................................... 20
Setting Interface Language and Skin for Your Control Panel ........................................... 20
Setting a Custom Logo ...................................................................................................... 20
Adding a Hyperlink Button to Your Control Panel ............................................................. 21
Removing a Hyperlink Button from Your Control Panel .................................................... 22
Customizing Your Control Panel in the Desktop View ................................................................ 22
Viewing Resource Allotments and Hosting Features Included in Your Hosting Package 24
Viewing IP addresses Included in Your Hosting Package .......................................................... 24
Viewing Resource Allotments for Your Account .......................................................................... 25
Viewing the List of Operations You Can Perform within Your Control Panel .............................. 27
Implementing Hosting Plans Using Domain Templates 29
Creating Templates ..................................................................................................................... 30
Modifying Templates ................................................................................................................... 35
Removing Templates................................................................................................................... 35
Managing Hosting Accounts 36
Upgrading Hosting Accounts ....................................................................................................... 37
Renewing Hosting Accounts ............................................................................................. 41
Suspending and Unsuspending Hosting Accounts ..................................................................... 41
Changing Web Hosting Type From Physical to Forwarding ....................................................... 42
Introducing Similar Changes to Numerous Hosting Accounts .................................................... 43
Removing Hosting Accounts ....................................................................................................... 44
Preface 4
Hosting Web Sites 45
Predefining Content for New Web Sites ...................................................................................... 46
Obtaining Domain Names ........................................................................................................... 47
Setting Up Hosting Account for a Web Site ................................................................................ 48
Limiting the Amount of Resources a Site Can Consume .................................................. 52
Allowing the Site Owner to Log in to Control Panel .......................................................... 54
Publishing a Site .......................................................................................................................... 56
Publishing Sites Through FTP .......................................................................................... 56
Uploading Sites Through Plesk File Manager ................................................................... 59
Publishing Sites from Microsoft FrontPage ....................................................................... 60
Publishing Sites from SiteBuilder ...................................................................................... 64
Publishing Sites with Adobe Dreamweaver ...................................................................... 65
Previewing a Site ......................................................................................................................... 66
Configuring ASP.NET .................................................................................................................. 66
Configuring ASP.NET for Domains ................................................................................... 67
Configuring ASP.NET for Virtual Directories ..................................................................... 69
Restoring Default ASP.NET Configuration ....................................................................... 71
Changing .NET Framework Version for Domains ............................................................. 72
Changing .NET Framework Version for Virtual Directories .............................................. 72
Setting PHP Version for a Domain .............................................................................................. 73
Deploying Databases .................................................................................................................. 73
Creating and Importing Databases ................................................................................... 74
Creating Database User Accounts .................................................................................... 75
Changing Database User Passwords ............................................................................... 75
Removing Database User Accounts ................................................................................. 76
Removing Databases ........................................................................................................ 76
Accessing Data From External Databases ................................................................................. 77
Creating Connections to External Databases by Installing New ODBC Drivers ............... 77
Changing Settings Of Existing ODBC Connections .......................................................... 78
Removing Connections to External Databases ................................................................ 78
Installing Applications .................................................................................................................. 79
Installing Java Web Applications....................................................................................... 82
Installing ASP.NET Web Applications ............................................................................... 83
Configuring Data Source Names for Adobe ColdFusion............................................................. 84
Creating a New Data Source Name .................................................................................. 84
Changing Settings of a Data Source Name ...................................................................... 85
Removing a Data Source Name ....................................................................................... 85
Using IIS Application Pool ........................................................................................................... 86
Setting Up IIS Application Pool ......................................................................................... 87
Disabling IIS Application Pool ........................................................................................... 87
Organizing Site Structure with Subdomains ................................................................................ 88
Setting Up Subdomains .................................................................................................... 89
Removing Subdomains ..................................................................................................... 91
Setting Up Additional Domain Names for a Site (Domain Aliases) ............................................. 91
Setting Up a Domain Alias ................................................................................................ 92
Modifying Properties of a Domain Alias ............................................................................ 93
Removing a Domain Alias ................................................................................................. 93
Using Virtual Directories .............................................................................................................. 94
Creating Virtual Directories ............................................................................................... 95
Changing Virtual Directory Settings .................................................................................. 96
Adding and Removing MIME Types ................................................................................. 99
Setting PHP Version for Virtual Directories ..................................................................... 101
Removing Virtual Directories ........................................................................................... 101
Hosting Personal Web Pages on Your Web Server .................................................................. 102
Changing FTP Password for a Web Page Owner .......................................................... 103
Allocating More Disk Space to the Web Page Owner .................................................... 103
Removing Web Page Owner's Account .......................................................................... 104
Preface 5
Setting Up Anonymous FTP Access to the Server ................................................................... 104
Customizing Web Server Error Messages ................................................................................ 105
Customizing DNS Zone Configuration for Domains .................................................................. 107
Adding Resource Records .............................................................................................. 108
Modifying Resource Records .......................................................................................... 109
Modifying Common Access Control List (ACL) ............................................................... 110
Removing Resource Records ......................................................................................... 111
Restoring the Original Zone Configuration ...................................................................... 111
Serving Sites with External Domain Name Servers .................................................................. 112
Serving Domain Names for Sites Hosted on Other Servers (Domain Forwarding) .................. 114
Renaming Domains ................................................................................................................... 115
Suspending and Unsuspending Domains ................................................................................. 115
Removing Domains ................................................................................................................... 116
Protecting Web Sites 117
Securing E-commerce Transactions with Secure Sockets Layer Encryption ........................... 118
Obtaining and Installing SSL Certificates from Comodo, GeoTrust, Inc. or GoDaddy ... 119
Obtaining and Installing SSL Certificates from Other Certification Authorities ............... 120
Creating and Installing Free Self-signed SSL Certificate ................................................ 121
Uninstalling a Certificate from Your Site ......................................................................... 122
Configuring Shared SSL and Master SSL Domain ......................................................... 123
Using SSL Certificate Shared By Another Domain (Shared SSL) .................................. 124
Restricting Bandwidth Usage For Domains .............................................................................. 125
Restricting the Amount of Simultaneous Web Connections to Domains .................................. 125
Protecting Sites From Bandwidth Stealing (Hotlinking) ............................................................. 126
Allowing and Disallowing Domains to Directly Link to Your Domain Files ...................... 126
Restricting Access to Web Server's Resources with Password Protection .............................. 127
Protecting a Resource ..................................................................................................... 127
Adding and Removing Authorized Users ........................................................................ 128
Unprotecting a Resource ................................................................................................ 129
Setting File and Folder Access Permissions ............................................................................. 129
Setting and Changing Access Permissions for Groups and Users ................................. 130
Removing Access Permissions from Groups and Users ................................................ 130
Setting Up Access Permissions Inheritance for Files and Folders ................................. 131
Setting, Changing and Removing Special Access Permissions ..................................... 131
Setting Access Permissions for Virtual Directories ......................................................... 132
Repairing Access Permissions ........................................................................................ 132
Viewing Statistics 134
Automating Report Generation and Delivery by E-mail ............................................................ 136
Viewing Log Files and Configuring Recycling of Log Files ....................................................... 138
Backing Up And Restoring Your Data 139
Backing Up Individual Domains (Web Sites) ............................................................................. 140
Backing Up Your Databases ..................................................................................................... 141
Backing Up Databases .................................................................................................... 141
Restoring Databases ....................................................................................................... 142
Maintaining Database Backup Files Repository ............................................................. 142
Recovering Orphaned Database Users .......................................................................... 144
Scheduling Backups .................................................................................................................. 145
Restoring Data From Backup Archives ..................................................................................... 146
Maintaining Your Backup Files Repository ............................................................................... 146
Uploading Backup Files to Server ................................................................................... 147
Downloading Backup Files from Server .......................................................................... 147
Removing Backup Files from Server .............................................................................. 148
Preface 6
Using E-mail Services 149
Creating Mailboxes .................................................................................................................... 150
Setting Up Your E-mail Program for Retrieving Mail from Your Mailbox .................................. 151
Accessing Your Mail From a Web Browser ............................................................................... 152
Protecting Mailboxes From Spam ............................................................................................. 153
Setting Up Additional Disposable E-mail Addresses (Mail Aliases)................................ 154
Setting Up Spam Filter .................................................................................................... 155
Protecting Mailboxes From Viruses ........................................................................................... 159
Switching on Antivirus Protection .................................................................................... 160
Switching off Antivirus Protection .................................................................................... 160
Suspending and Unsuspending Mailboxes ............................................................................... 161
Removing Mailboxes ................................................................................................................. 162
Switching off the Mailbox Service When You Have Decided to Turn Your Account into a Mail
Forwarder .................................................................................................................................. 162
Setting Up Mail Forwarding to a Single E-mail Address ........................................................... 163
Suspending and Unsuspending Mail Forwarders ........................................................... 164
Setting Up Mail Forwarding to Multiple E-mail Addresses ........................................................ 165
Adding and Removing Recipient Addresses ................................................................... 166
Switching off Mail Forwarding to Multiple E-mail Addresses .......................................... 167
Removing Mail Forwarders ....................................................................................................... 167
Setting Up Automatic Reply ...................................................................................................... 168
Switching off Automatic Reply ................................................................................................... 169
Setting Up Site-wide Preferences for Handling Mail to Nonexistent Users (Mail Bounce) ....... 170
Introducing Similar Changes to a Number of Mail Accounts at Once ....................................... 171
Maintaining Mailing Lists ........................................................................................................... 171
Setting Up a Mailing List ................................................................................................. 172
Subscribing and Unsubscribing Users ............................................................................ 172
Exporting The List Of Subscribed Users ......................................................................... 173
Posting to Your Mailing List ............................................................................................. 173
Removing Mailing Lists ................................................................................................... 173
Scheduling Tasks 174
Scheduling a Task ..................................................................................................................... 174
Suspending and Resuming Execution of Tasks ........................................................................ 175
Unscheduling a Task ................................................................................................................. 175
Monitoring Connections to Control Panel and FTP Services 176
Monitoring Connections to Control Panel .................................................................................. 176
Monitoring Connections to FTP Service .................................................................................... 177
Accessing The Server Via Remote Desktop (RDP) 178
Using Help Desk for Resolving Your Customers' Issues and Requesting Assistance from Provider
180
Viewing Trouble Tickets in Your Help Desk .............................................................................. 181
Commenting and Closing Trouble Tickets ................................................................................ 181
Submitting a Problem Report to Your Service Provider ............................................................ 182
Preface 7
In this section:
Who Should Read This Guide ........................................................................... 7
Typographical Conventions ............................................................................... 7
Feedback .......................................................................................................... 8
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.
Preface
Who Should Read This Guide
This guide is intended for hosting resellers and owners of multiple domains, who were
provided with access to Plesk control panel as part of their shared, dedicated or reseller
hosting package.
Typographical Conventions
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.
8 Preface
Formatting convention
Type of Information
Example
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
Feedback
If you have found an error 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.
Plesk is the control panel software that you use for reselling shared hosting services,
In this chapter:
Logging In to Plesk ............................................................................................ 10
Becoming Familiar with Plesk's Interface........................................................... 11
Changing Your Contact Information and Password ........................................... 13
C H A P T E R 1
Getting Started
and hosting your own domain names and web sites.
You can manage the hosted domain names and web sites on your own, or delegate
permissions to manage individual domains to other users. Upon delegation, a separate
Domain Administrator's control panel environment is automatically created, providing
your customer with site and e-mail management capabilities in accordance with the
permissions you define.
Using the Domain Administrator's control panel, a site owner can:
Change passwords for access to control panel and Web space through FTP,
Publish and preview a Web site,
Install, manage and remove databases and Web applications,
Order and install SSL certificates to secure online transactions (this is possible for
Web sites hosted on a dedicated IP address, which is not shared among other Web
sites),
Set up, manage and remove subdomains,
Host personal Web pages for other users,
Password protect areas of a Web site,
Customize Web server error messages,
Backup and restore a Web site with its databases and applications,
Schedule automatic backups,
Create, edit, remove mailboxes, and protect them against spam and viruses,
Allow access to individual E-mail administration panel to mailbox owners (this is
convenient when running mail hosting business or creating mailboxes for other
users),
Create, edit, remove mail forwarders and automatic replies,
Create, manage, remove mailing lists, subscribe and unsubscribe users.
You have access to all these features from your own control panel, therefore, you will
not need to use neither the Domain Administrator's nor E-mail Administrator's control
panels.
To learn more about using Domain Administrator's control panel, please refer to the
Domain Administrator Guide.
10 Getting Started
Logging In to Plesk
To log in to your Plesk control panel:
1. Open your web browser, and in the address bar type the URL where
your Plesk control panel is located.
For example, https://your-domain.com:8443, where your-domain.com is the domain
name of your Web host.
2. Press ENTER. Plesk login screen will open.
3. Type the login name and password your provider gave you into the
Login and Password boxes, respectively.
4. If you log in for the first time, select the language for your control panel
from the Interface language drop-down box. If you had previously specified
the interface language and saved it in your interface preferences, leave
the User default value selected.
5. Click Login.
Note for hosting resellers: Your customers who were granted access to control panel
for managing their own web sites will need to specify their domain names in the Login
box.
If You Forgot Your Password
To restore your forgotten password:
1. In your web browser’s address bar, type the URL where your Plesk
control panel is located (for example, https://your-domain.com:8443)
2. Press ENTER.
Plesk login screen will open.
3. Click the Forgot your password? link.
4. Type your login name into the Login box, and type your e-mail address
registered in the system into the E-mail box.
5. Click OK.
Your password will be sent to your e-mail address.
Getting Started 11
Becoming Familiar with Plesk's Interface
When you log in to control panel, it can open in either a standard view, a simplified
desktop view, or a combination of both. The standard view is a customary view of the
control panel divided into two main areas: navigation pane on the left and the main
screen where operations are performed on the right.
The desktop view can show site statistics and shortcuts to the operations you
frequently perform—everything you may need can now be accessible from a single
screen.
12 Getting Started
In this section:
Items in the Desktop View ................................................................................. 12
Items in the Standard View ................................................................................ 12
Items in the Desktop View
The desktop view originally shows three sections:
Tools. This group shows shortcuts to the operations that you can perform through
the control panel. You can freely add and remove these shortcuts.
Statistics. This shows the number of domains you have under your account, disk
space and monthly bandwidth usage, and number of mailboxes on your hosted
domains.
Favorites. This group shows four types of shortcuts sorted by type and placed on the
respective tabs. The Domains tab shows shortcuts to your favorite domains. The Mail
Accounts tab shows shortcuts to the favorite e-mail accounts. The Shortcuts tab
shows all other types of shortcuts that do not relate to domains and e-mail user
accounts. The Recent tab shows last ten control panel screens you have been on.
The Favorites group also provides search tool for finding domains and e-mail
accounts. To use the search tool, type the search criteria (this can be any
combination of symbols, search is case insensitive) and click Search.
To customize your control panel in the Desktop view, refer to the Customizing Your
Control Panel in the Desktop View (on page 22) section.
Using Wizards
When you work with Plesk in the Desktop view, you accomplish the tasks you need
through wizards. Each wizard is a series of consecutive screens. To accomplish a task
using a wizard, follow the instructions displayed on the wizard screens. For information
on individual options, refer to the respective sections of this guide.
Items in the Standard View
The navigation pane is located on the left. It gives you access to sets of administrative
functions:
Home. This is where you modify settings related to your account, manage Web sites
and e-mail services.
Sessions. When site and mailbox owners log in to control panel, or connect to the
server via FTP protocol, they establish sessions that you can monitor and
terminate.
Getting Started 13
Global Account. This shortcut appears in your Plesk Control Panel when the single
sign-on capabilities are switched on the hosting server. Single sign-on technology
allows you to log in to different Parallels products using a single global login name
and password. This shortcut is used for changing the global login settings.
Help Desk. This is the help desk system integrated with your control panel. If your
provider uses it, then you can use it to report your problems to provider’s technical
support staff.
Help. Provides context sensitive help.
Log Out. When finished working with control panel, click this icon to close your
session.
Desktop in the SiteBuilder group. The Desktop screen is divided into two areas: Tasks
and Statistics. In the Tasks area you can see an overview of main functionalities of
the Administrator Panel. In the Statistics area you can see how many users, sites,
are currently in the system.
Sites in the SiteBuilder group. On this screen you can see the list of available
websites created in SiteBuilder and manage them.
Server in the SiteBuilder group. This page allows you access to the SiteBuilder's
server administration functions.
Below the Help icon, there is a context help tip area. It provides a brief description of the
current screen or available operations. When you place the mouse pointer over a
system element or status icon, it displays additional information.
To navigate through Plesk, you can also use a path bar: a chain of links that appears in
the right part of the screen, below the banner area. To return to a previous screen, use
Up Level in the upper-right corner of the screen.
To find items in lengthy lists, use search boxes located above every list of items: type a
search criterion into the input box, and click Search. A list will show the items matching
the search criteria. To return back to viewing all items, click Show All. You can hide the
search area by clicking Hide Search. To show the hidden search area, click Show Search.
To sort a list by a certain parameter in ascending or descending order, click on the
parameter's title in the column heading. The order of sorting will be indicated by a small
triangle displayed next to the parameter's title.
To customize your control panel in Standard view, refer to the Customizing Your
Control Panel (on page 15) section.
Changing Your Contact Information and Password
If you need to update your contact information, or change password:
1. On your Home page, click Edit in the Tools group.
2. Update your information as required, or type a new password, and click
OK.
14 Getting Started
If you forgot your password:
1. In your web browser’s address bar, type the URL where your Plesk
control panel is located.
2. For example, https://your-domain.com:8443.
3. Press ENTER. Plesk login screen will open.
4. Click the Forgot your password? link.
5. Type your login name into the Login box, type your e-mail address
registered in the system into the E-mail box, and click OK.
Your password will be sent to your e-mail address.
In this chapter:
Setting Up Global Account ................................................................................ 16
Customizing Your Control Panel in the Standard View ...................................... 20
Customizing Your Control Panel in the Desktop View ....................................... 22
C H A P T E R 2
Customizing Your Control Panel
16 Customizing Your Control Panel
Setting Up Global Account
Global Account is a single sign-on (SSO) technology feature that allows you to log in to
different Parallels products using a single global login and password. If you have
several accounts in Plesk Control Panel, you can connect them all to a global account
and switch between these accounts without entering a password every time. You can
also connect all your accounts in other Parallels products to your global account and
switch between them without providing credentials.
To switch on support for single sign-on for your server, do the following:
In Plesk Control Panel for Linux/Unix
1. Find out the IP address of the SSO server that you will be using. It can
be provided by your hosting company, or you can set up the SSO
server on any machine that is accessible over the Internet, including
your Plesk Control Panel server. For installation instructions, refer to
the Plesk Control Panel Installation Guide.
2. Register your server with the single sign-on server: issue the command
<plesk_installation_directory>/admin/sbin/sso -server
https://idp-master.example.com:11443.
3. Switch on single sign-on: issue the command
<plesk_installation_directory>/admin/sbin/sso -e.
In Plesk Control Panel for Windows
1. Find out the IP address of the SSO server that you will be using. It can
be provided by your hosting company, or you can set up the SSO
server on any machine that is accessible over the Internet, including
your Plesk Control Panel server. For installation instructions, refer to
the Plesk Control Panel Installation Guide.
2. Register your server with the single sign-on server: issue the command
<plesk_installation_directory>\sso.exe -server https://idpmaster.example.com:11443.
3. Switch on single sign-on: issue the command
<plesk_installation_directory>\sso.exe -e.
Customizing Your Control Panel 17
In this section:
Creating A Global Account ................................................................................ 18
Connecting Local Accounts To Your Global Account ......................................... 18
Switching Between Accounts ............................................................................ 19
Changing Global Account Password ................................................................. 19
Disconnecting Local Accounts From Global Account ......................................... 19
18 Customizing Your Control Panel
Creating A Global Account
After you create a global account and connect local accounts to it, you will be able to
choose from any account connected to your global account when logging in under your
global account.
To create a global account:
1. Log in to Plesk, go to Global Account and click Connect To Global Account.
2. Select Create new global account and provide the login and password for
your global account.
3. Click OK.
Your global account is active now, so you can proceed with connecting other accounts
to it. Refer to Connecting Local Accounts to Your Global Account (on page 18) section
for more information.
Connecting Local Accounts To Your Global Account
To connect a local Plesk account to your global account:
1. Log in to Plesk under the local account you want to connect.
2. Go to Global Account and click Connect To Global Account.
3. Make sure that Use existing global account option is selected and provide
the login and password for the global account you want to connect to.
4. Click OK.
Repeat steps 1-4 for other local accounts as necessary.
To connect an account in another product with SSO support to your
global account:
1. Log in to software product with SSO support under the account you
want to connect.
2. Follow the instructions on connecting to a global account in respective
software product documentation. Make sure that you provide the
credentials for the existing global account when you are asked to .
Repeat steps 1-2 for other accounts or products as necessary.
Note. Different software products may use different names for the Global Account
feature, such as Federated Identity or Global Login. Refer to respective software
product documentation for more information.
Customizing Your Control Panel 19
After you have connected all required accounts to your global account, you can log in
under your global account all the time in any product where you have a local account
connected to your global account. You will be shown the list of local accounts
connected to your global account every time you log in under it, so you can choose
which account you would like to use now. You can switch to another account any time
you want. Refer to Switching Between Accounts (on page 19) section for more
information.
Switching Between Accounts
To switch to another account:
1. Click Switch User in the upper right corner.
2. Select the account you want to switch to:
Choose the required local account from the list of accounts connected to your
global account
or
Select Specify credentials for another account and provide login and password for a
local account not connected to your global account or to another global account.
You can also specify the language for your control panel from the Interface
language menu. If you had previously specified the interface language for that
account and saved it in its interface preferences, leave the Default value
selected.
3. Click OK.
Changing Global Account Password
To change password of your global account:
1. Log in to Plesk under your global account or any local account
connected to it.
2. Go to Global Account and click Change Password.
3. Enter your old and new passwords, and click OK.
Disconnecting Local Accounts From Global Account
To disconnect a local account from your global account:
1. Log in to Plesk under the local account you want to disconnect.
2. Go to Global Account and click Disconnect From Global Account.
20 Customizing Your Control Panel
3. Confirm the disconnection and click OK.
In this section:
Setting Interface Language and Skin for Your Control Panel ............................. 20
Setting a Custom Logo ...................................................................................... 20
Adding a Hyperlink Button to Your Control Panel .............................................. 21
Removing a Hyperlink Button from Your Control Panel ..................................... 22
Repeat steps 1-3 for other local accounts as necessary.
Customizing Your Control Panel in the Standard View
Setting Interface Language and Skin for Your Control Panel
To change preferences of your control panel:
1. On your Home page, click Preferences in the Tools group.
2. Specify the interface language, skin, interface customization templates.
3. If required, clear the Prevent working with Plesk until page is completely loaded
checkbox and modify the creation or retention of SiteBuilder User by
selecting or clearing the appropriate checkbox.
4. Click OK.
Setting a Custom Logo
To set up a custom logo image that will be visible to your customers when
they log in to Plesk control panel:
1. On your Home page, click Branding.
2. Click Browse... to navigate to the desired image file that you have on
your local computer.
We recommend that you use an image that is 50 pixels in height, in GIF, JPEG or
PNG format, and preferably not larger than 100 kilobytes to minimize the download
time.
Customizing Your Control Panel 21
3. If you wish to attach a hyperlink to the logo image, type the URL into
the Enter new URL for logo box.
4. Click OK to submit.
To restore the original Plesk logo image:
1. On your Home page, click Branding.
2. Click Default Logo.
Adding a Hyperlink Button to Your Control Panel
To add a custom hyperlink button to your Plesk control panel and specify
whether your customers will see it in their control panels:
1. On your Home page, go to Custom Buttons and click Add New Button.
2. Specify properties of the button:
Type the text that will show on your button in the Button label field.
Choose the location for your button. To place it in the right frame of your Home
page, select the Client home page value from the Location drop-down box. To
place it on each domain's administration screen (Home > domain name), select the
Domain Administration page value. To place it in the left frame (navigation pane) of
your control panel, select the Navigation pane value.
Specify the priority of the button. Plesk will arrange your custom buttons on the
control panel in accordance with the priority you define: the lower the number –
the higher is priority. Buttons are placed in the left-to-right order.
To use an image for a button background, type the path to its location or click
Browse to browse for the desired file. It is recommended that you use a 16x16
pixels GIF or JPEG image for a button to be placed in the navigation pane, and
32x32 pixels GIF or JPEG image for buttons placed in the main frame.
Type the hyperlink of your choice to be attached to the button into the URL box.
Using the checkboxes, specify whether to include the information, such as
domain name, FTP login, FTP password and other data to be transferred within
the URL. These data can be used for processing by external web applications.
In the Context help tip contents input field, type in the help tip that will be displayed
when you hover the mouse pointer over the button.
Select the Open URL in the Control Panel checkbox if you wish the destination URL
to be opened in the control panel's right frame, otherwise leave this check box
unchecked to open the URL in a separate browser window.
If you wish to make this button visible to the mailbox users with access to control
panel, select the Visible to all sub-logins checkbox.
3. Click OK to complete creation.
22 Customizing Your Control Panel
Removing a Hyperlink Button from Your Control Panel
To remove a hyperlink button from your Plesk control panel:
1. On your Home page, click Custom Buttons in the Tools group.
2. Select a check box corresponding to the button that you wish to remove
and click Remove Selected.
Customizing Your Control Panel in the Desktop View
To add or remove items from the desktop:
1. Go to Desktop > Customize Desktop.
2. In the Tools group, specify what tasks you would like to accomplish
through the control panel. The appropriate shortcuts will be placed to
the desktop. The Selected tasks list shows the tasks for which shortcuts
are already placed on the desktop. The Available tasks list shows the
tasks for which you do not yet have shortcuts on your desktop.
To add a shortcut to the desktop, select the required tasks in the Available tasks
list and click Add >>.
To remove a shortcut from the desktop, select the task that you do not need in
the Selected tasks list and click << Remove.
3. To show your custom buttons on the desktop, select the Custom buttons
check box.
4. To show the shortcut for creating new custom hyperlink buttons at the
bottom of the desktop, select the Create a new domain custom button check
box.
5. Specify whether to show the Statistics and Favorites groups and what
items to show there. Clearing check boxes will remove the respective
items from the desktop. The Favorites group shows the links to items or
control panel screens that you added to desktop by navigating to the
respective control panel screens and clicking the Create shortcut or
Add to favorites icons.
6. Click OK.
Customizing Your Control Panel 23
To add a domain to the Favorites group of the desktop:
1. On your Home page, click the domain name you want to add to
favorites.
2. Click the Add to favorites icon at the upper right corner of the screen.
3. Specify the desktop shortcut label and the description.
4. Click OK.
To add a mail account to the Favorites group of the desktop:
1. On your Home page, click the required domain name.
2. Click the Mail icon in the Services group.
3. Click the e-mail address you want to add to favorites.
4. Click the Add to favorites icon at the upper right corner of the screen.
5. Specify the desktop shortcut label and the description.
6. Click OK.
To add items to the Favorites group of the desktop:
1. Navigate to the control panel screen you need.
2. Click the Create Shortcut icon at the upper right corner of the screen.
3. Specify the desktop shortcut label and the description.
4. Click OK.
To remove items from the Favorites group of the desktop:
1. On the desktop, click the shortcut that you wish to remove.
2. Click the Edit Favorites icon in the upper right corner of the screen.
3. Click Remove.
OR
1. On the desktop, click the icon corresponding to the shortcut that you
wish to remove.
2. Click Remove.
In this chapter:
Viewing IP addresses Included in Your Hosting Package .................................. 24
Viewing Resource Allotments for Your Account ................................................. 25
Viewing the List of Operations You Can Perform within Your Control Panel ...... 27
C H A P T E R 3
Viewing Resource Allotments and Hosting Features Included in Your Hosting Package
Viewing IP addresses Included in Your Hosting Package
To view the IP addresses included in your hosting package, on your Home page, click
IP Pool. Your IP addresses are listed and the following supplementary information is
given:
An icon in the S (Status) column shows if your IP address is properly configured
on the network interface. If your IP address was removed from the network
interface by your provider, an icon will show .
An icon in the T (Type) column shows if you were allotted a dedicated IP
address, and if the address is shared among other customers of your service
provider. A dedicated IP address is not used by other users, so you can use it to
host either:
A single e-commerce Web site secured with Secure Sockets Layer encryption, or a
number of web sites that do not need Secure Sockets Layer encryption.
Note: Shared IP addresses should be used for hosting only non e-commerce Web
sites.
The Certificate column shows which SSL certificate (for what domain name) is tied to
an IP address. See the section "Securing e-commerce transactions with Secure
Sockets Layer encryption" for details.
The FTP over SSL column shows whether it is possible to use secure FTP
connection (FTP over SSL) on one of the domains hosted on this IP. To switch on
FTP over SSL for an exclusive IP address, select the check box corresponding to
the required IP address under the FTP over SSL column.
The Hosting column shows a number of web sites hosted on an IP address. To view
the domain names of these web sites, click the number in the Hosting column.
Viewing Resource Allotments and Hosting Features Included in Your Hosting Package 25
Viewing Resource Allotments for Your Account
To view the resource allotments for your account, on your Home page, click Limits. The
resource allotments are shown as follows:
Maximum number of domains. The total number of domain names/web sites you can
host on the server. This includes web sites that you host on this server, and domain
forwarders that point to web sites hosted on other servers. Domain aliases
(additional domain names for sites hosted on this server) are not limited by this
resource type.
Maximum number of domain aliases. Displays the maximum number of domain aliases
that can be created for your domains.
Maximum number of subdomains. Displays the maximum number of subdomains that
can be hosted under your domains.
Disk space. Shows you the total amount of disk space allocated to your account.
This amount is measured in megabytes. It includes disk space occupied by all files
related to your domains/web sites: web site contents, databases, applications,
mailboxes, log files and backup files. This is the so-called soft quota: when it is
exceeded, domain names and web sites are not suspended automatically, only the
appropriate notices are sent to your provider's e-mail addresses and the resource
overage is indicated by a corresponding icon shown in the control panel to the
left of your domain name.
MySQL databases quota and Microsoft SQL databases quota. Displays the maximum disk
space amount that MySQL and Microsoft SQL Server databases respectively can
occupy on your domains.
Maximum amount of traffic. Displays the maximum amount of data in megabytes that
can be transferred from your websites during a month. Once the limit is reached,
the appropriate notices are sent to your provider's e-mail addresses and the
resource overage is indicated by a corresponding icon shown in the control
panel to the left of the domain name.
Maximum number of web users. Shows the maximum number of personal web pages
that you can host for other users under your domains. This service is mostly used in
educational institutions that host non-commercial personal pages of their students
and staff. These pages usually have web addresses like http://yourdomain.com/~username.
Maximum number of additional Microsoft FrontPage accounts. Displays the maximum
number of additional Microsoft FrontPage accounts you can create on your
domains.
Maximum number of additional FTP accounts. Displays the maximum number of
additional FTP accounts that you can create on your domains.
Maximum number of MySQL databases and Maximum number of Microsoft SQL Server
databases. Displays the maximum number of MySQL and Microsoft SQL Server
databases respectively that can be hosted in your domains.
Maximum number of mailboxes. Shows the maximum number of mailboxes that can be
hosted in your domains.
26 Viewing Resource Allotments and Hosting Features Included in Your Hosting Package
Mailbox quota. Displays the amount of disk space in kilobytes that is allocated to
each mailbox in your domains.
Total mailboxes quota. Displays the total amount of disk space available for all
mailboxes on all your domains.
Maximum number of mail redirects. Shows the maximum number of mail redirects that
can be used in your domains.
Maximum number of mail groups. Shows the maximum number of mail groups that can
be used in your domains.
Maximum number of mail autoresponders. Displays the maximum number of
autoresponders that can be set up in your domains.
Maximum number of mailing lists. Shows maximum the number of mailing lists that you
can run in your domains.
Maximum number of Java applications. Displays the maximum number of Java
applications or applets that you can install on your domains.
Maximum number of IIS application pools. Specify the total number of dedicated IIS
application pools that the customer can allocate between his or her domains.
Maximum number of shared SSL links. Shows the total number of subdomains
(including their parent domain) that can link to the Master SSL domain defined by
the server administrator.
Maximum number of ODBC connections. Shows the maximum number of ODBC
connections that you can use on your domains.
Validity period. Shows the term for a hosting account. At the end of the term, your
domain/web site will be suspended, its Web, FTP and mail services will no longer
be accessible to the Internet users, and you will not be able to log in to the control
panel.
Viewing Resource Allotments and Hosting Features Included in Your Hosting Package 27
Viewing the List of Operations You Can Perform within Your Control Panel
To view the list of operations you can perform within your control panel, on your Home
page, click Permissions. The permissions for operations are listed as follows:
Access to control panel. Shows whether you can access the control panel for
managing domains and sites.
Domain creation. Shows whether you can host new domain names/web sites on the
server.
Physical hosting management. Shows whether you can fully control hosting accounts
for your web sites. If it says No, then you can only change FTP password for
accessing your web spaces.
System access management. Shows whether you can enable and disable access to
the system through Remote Desktop.
Hard disk quota assignment. Shows whether you can set up the hard quotas on disk
space allocated to your sites.
Subdomains management. Shows whether you can set up, modify and remove
subdomains.
Domain aliases management. Shows whether you are able to set up additional
alternative domain names for web sites and allow users to do so.
Log rotation management. Shows whether you can adjust the cleanup and recycling of
processed log files for your site.
Anonymous FTP management. Shows whether you can have an FTP directory where
all users could download and upload files without the need to enter login and
password. A web site should reside on a dedicated IP address in order to use
anonymous FTP service.
FTP accounts management. Shows whether you can create and manage additional
FTP accounts.
Scheduler management. Shows whether you can schedule tasks with the task
scheduler. Scheduled tasks can be used for running scripts or utilities on schedule.
Domain limits adjustment. Shows whether you can distribute the resources given to
you by your service provider between your domains.
DNS zone management. Shows whether you can manage the DNS zones of your
domains.
Tomcat applications management. Shows whether you can install Tomcat Java
applications and applets on the web site through the control panel.
Mailing lists management. Shows whether you can use mailing lists provided by the
GNU Mailman software.
Spam filter management. Shows whether you can use spam filter provided by the
SpamAssassin software.
Antivirus management. Shows whether you can use server-side antivirus protection
for filtering incoming and outgoing mail.
28 Viewing Resource Allotments and Hosting Features Included in Your Hosting Package
Backup/restore functions. Shows whether you can use the control panel's facilities to
backup and restore your sites. Scheduled and on-demand backups are supported.
Ability to use remote XML interface. Shows whether can remotely manage web sites
through custom applications. The XML interface can be used for developing custom
applications integrated with web sites, which could be used, for instance, for
automating setup of hosting accounts and provisioning of services for customers
purchasing hosting services from your reseller's site. The remote XML interface
operations are limited to setting up and removing domain names/web spaces on the
server, modifying domain and web site related preferences and hosting services,
retrieving information on domains.
SiteBuilder. Shows whether you can use SiteBuilder for creating and editing your
web sites.
Hosting Perfomance Management. Shows whether you can change the hosting
performance preferences for your domains.
IIS Application Pool Management. Shows whether you can manage your IIS application
pool.
Web statistics management. Shows whether you can manage web statistics for your
domains.
Additional write/modify permissions management. Shows whether you can manage
additional write/modify permissions for your domains. These permissions are
required if your web applications are using a file-based database (like Jet) located
in the root of httpdocs or httpsdocs folders. Please note that selecting this
option might seriously compromise the web site security.
Shared SSL management. Shows whether you can manage shared SSL for your
domains.
User interface. Shows what type of Plesk control panel interface you can use -
standard, desktop, or both.
Desktop management. Shows whether you can customize and manage your desktop
interface.
Ability to select a database server. Shows whether you can select a database server of
each type for creating your databases, not only use the default database server.
If you are going to resell hosting services or planning to host numerous domains and
In this chapter:
Creating Templates ........................................................................................... 30
Modifying Templates ......................................................................................... 35
Removing Templates ........................................................................................ 35
C H A P T E R 4
Implementing Hosting Plans Using Domain Templates
web sites, you may want to create hosting configuration presets, referred to as domain
templates, that will simplify setting up hosting accounts for new domains and web sites.
The templates cover all resource usage allotments, permissions and limits that you can
define for a hosting account, plus mail bounce and Web statistics retention settings.
30 Implementing Hosting Plans Using Domain Templates
Creating Templates
To implement a hosting plan (or simplify setup of multiple domains), create a domain
template, and define hosting services and resource allotments in accordance with your
hosting plan:
1. On your Home page, click Domain Templates in the Tools group.
2. Click Add New Domain Template.
3. Specify the template properties:
Template name. Specify a name for this template. During setup of a new hosting
account, you will be prompted to select the required template by its name.
Therefore, we recommend that you choose a meaningful name that
corresponds to one of your hosting plans or describes the amount of allotted
resources. For example, Mail hosting, 1GB disk space, 500 mailboxes.
Mail to nonexistent users. Specify the domain-wide mail bounce options: When
somebody sends an e-mail message to an e-mail address that does not exist
under your domain, the mail server on your domain accepts mails, processes it,
and when it finds out that there is no such a recipient under your domain, it
returns the mail back to sender with the ―this address no longer accepts mail‖
notice. You can choose to:
change the default notice if you do not like it (leave the Bounce option
selected and type another message into the input box),
forward undelivered mail to another e-mail address (select the Catch to
address option and specify the e-mail address you need), or
reject mail without accepting it (select the Discard option). This setting can
decrease mail server load caused by a large amount of spam, which is often
directed at randomly generated user names. However, for spammers this
can somewhat speed up scanning your mail server for valid e-mail
addresses.
Choose the required WebMail client software in the WebMail menu to enable the
ability to read mail through a browser-based WebMail application for users of
mailboxes in this domain. If you don't want to provide this ability, select None.
Maximum number of domain aliases. Specify the number of domain aliases that can
be used for this domain.
Maximum number of subdomains. Specify the number of subdomains that can be
hosted under this domain.
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