Parallels Plesk Panel - 11.5 Administrator’s Guide
Parallels® Panel
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Contents
After Upgrading to Panel 11.5 10
Upgrade from Earlier Panel Versions .......................................................................................... 11
Upgrade from Small Business Panel........................................................................................... 14
Differences between SBP and Panel 11 ........................................................................... 14
About Parallels Plesk Panel 18
About Panel Users....................................................................................................................... 19
The Panel GUI ............................................................................................................................. 20
Interface Views .................................................................................................................. 24
Customizing Power User View .......................................................................................... 25
Web Servers 27
Apache Web Server (Linux) ........................................................................................................ 28
Apache with nginx ............................................................................................................. 30
Adjusting Apache Settings for Virtual Hosts ..................................................................... 34
Adjusting nginx Settings for Virtual Hosts ......................................................................... 35
Optimizing Apache Web Server ........................................................................................ 38
IIS Web Server (Windows) .......................................................................................................... 41
Adjusting IIS Settings for Websites ................................................................................... 42
IIS Application Pool ........................................................................................................... 42
Web Hosting 44
Website Directory Structure ........................................................................................................ 44
Defining a Custom Virtual Host Template ......................................................................... 45
Virtual Host Structure (Linux) ............................................................................................ 45
Virtual Host Structure (Windows) ...................................................................................... 47
Website Preview .......................................................................................................................... 50
PHP Configuration ....................................................................................................................... 50
PHP Handlers.................................................................................................................... 52
Custom PHP Configuration ............................................................................................... 54
Multiple PHP Versions ................................................................................................................. 58
Configuring ASP.NET (Windows) ................................................................................................ 60
DNS 63
Server-Wide DNS Template ........................................................................................................ 64
Adjusting DNS Template ................................................................................................... 65
Applying DNS Template Changes (Linux) ........................................................................ 68
DNS Zones for Subdomains ........................................................................................................ 69
Configuring the Recursive DNS .................................................................................................. 70
Restricting DNS Zones Transfer ................................................................................................. 71
Restricting Users' Access to Other Users' DNS Zones ............................................................... 71
Using BIND Instead of Microsoft DNS (Windows) ...................................................................... 72
Switching Off the DNS Service .................................................................................................... 72
Using External DNS Servers ....................................................................................................... 72
Panel Without a DNS Server ....................................................................................................... 74
After Upgrading to Panel 11.5 4
Mail 75
Configuring Server-Wide Mail Settings ....................................................................................... 77
Using Panel Without the Mail Server........................................................................................... 79
Removing Mail Functionality from the Control Panel .................................................................. 81
Using Other Mail Server Software ............................................................................................... 82
Antispam Tools ............................................................................................................................ 83
SpamAssassin Spam Filter ............................................................................................... 85
DomainKeys Protection ..................................................................................................... 88
DNS Blackhole Lists .......................................................................................................... 90
Server-wide Black and White Lists.................................................................................... 90
Sender Policy Framework System (Linux) ........................................................................ 92
Greylisting (Linux) ............................................................................................................. 93
Outbound Spam Protection ......................................................................................................... 94
Installing Parallels Premium Outbound Antispam ............................................................. 95
Configuring Protection ....................................................................................................... 96
Antivirus Software...................................................................................................................... 100
Webmail Software ..................................................................................................................... 102
Mailing Lists (Linux) ................................................................................................................... 103
Preventing Mass Email Sending (Linux) ................................................................................... 104
Mail Queue (Linux) .................................................................................................................... 104
Mass Email Notifications ........................................................................................................... 105
Creating, Editing and Removing Message Templates .................................................... 106
Sending E-mail Notices ................................................................................................... 108
Configuring Email Notifications ................................................................................................. 109
Database Servers 112
Adding and Removing Database Servers ................................................................................. 114
Configuring Backup Settings for Remote SQL Servers ............................................................ 116
Changing Database Administrator's Credentials....................................................................... 117
Database Hosting Preferences ................................................................................................. 118
Database Management Tools ................................................................................................... 119
Connecting to External Databases (Windows) .......................................................................... 120
Server Administration 121
IP Pool ....................................................................................................................................... 122
Scheduling Tasks ...................................................................................................................... 126
Scheduling Tasks on Linux-based Servers ..................................................................... 127
Scheduling Tasks on Windows-based Servers ............................................................... 129
Server Settings .......................................................................................................................... 131
System Services ........................................................................................................................ 132
System Date and Time .............................................................................................................. 134
Firewall ...................................................................................................................................... 135
The Panel Firewall (Linux) .............................................................................................. 135
The Panel Firewall (Windows) ........................................................................................ 136
Panel Administration 138
Panel Licensing ......................................................................................................................... 139
Installing a Panel License Key ........................................................................................ 140
Installing Additional License Keys for Panel Add-ons ..................................................... 141
Upgrading Your License Key .......................................................................................... 142
Rolling Back to Your Previously Used License Key ........................................................ 142
Securing Panel .......................................................................................................................... 142
Restricting Administrative Access ................................................................................... 143
After Upgrading to Panel 11.5 5
Restricting Remote Access via API RPC ........................................................................ 144
Setting Up the Minimum Password Strength .................................................................. 144
Turning On the Enhanced Security Mode ....................................................................... 145
Using Secure FTP ........................................................................................................... 146
SSL Protection ................................................................................................................ 146
Panel and Network Environments ............................................................................................. 151
Ports Used by Panel ....................................................................................................... 152
Running Panel Behind a Router with NAT ...................................................................... 153
Configuring Port Range for Passive FTP Mode (Windows) ............................................ 154
Setting Up Help Desk ................................................................................................................ 155
Trial (Try and Buy) Mode for Presence Builder ......................................................................... 157
Configuring the Try and Buy for Existing Customers ...................................................... 160
Configuring the Try and Buy for Potential Customers .................................................... 161
Customizing Trial Mode Notifications .............................................................................. 162
Offering the Try and Buy with Alternative Billing Solutions ............................................. 165
Changing Your Password and Contact Information .................................................................. 168
If Your Panel Works with Parallels Customer and Business Manager ........................... 169
Appearance and Branding ......................................................................................................... 170
Appearance ..................................................................................................................... 170
Branding and Themes ..................................................................................................... 176
Panel Components .................................................................................................................... 176
Web Applications ....................................................................................................................... 177
How Apps Become Available to Your Customers ........................................................... 181
Application Vault ............................................................................................................. 183
Session Preferences ................................................................................................................. 187
Managing Panel from Mobile Devices ....................................................................................... 188
Panel Inside Parallels Virtuozzo Containers ............................................................................. 192
Remote Access (Windows) ....................................................................................................... 194
Additional Administrator Accounts............................................................................................. 195
Creating Additional Administrator Accounts .................................................................... 196
Modifying Additional Administrator Accounts .................................................................. 196
Suspending and Activating Additional Administrator Accounts ...................................... 197
Removing Additional Administrator Accounts ................................................................. 197
Event Tracking ........................................................................................................................... 198
Adding Event Handlers (Linux) ....................................................................................... 199
Adding Event Handlers (Windows) ................................................................................. 200
Removing Event Handlers .............................................................................................. 201
Migration from Other Hosting Platforms .................................................................................... 202
Data Transfer from Another Panel ............................................................................................ 202
Panel Extensions (Linux) ........................................................................................................... 203
Counter-Strike Game Server Extension .......................................................................... 204
File Server Extension ...................................................................................................... 215
Firewall Extension ........................................................................................................... 223
Watchdog (System Monitoring) Extension ...................................................................... 230
VPN Extension ................................................................................................................ 242
Panel Updates and Upgrades 248
Panel Updates ........................................................................................................................... 249
Panel Upgrades ......................................................................................................................... 251
Changing the Updates/Upgrades Source ................................................................................. 253
Reporting Upgrade Problems .................................................................................................... 254
Statistics and Monitoring 255
Action Logs ................................................................................................................................ 256
Setting Up Action Logging ............................................................................................... 257
Downloading the Action Log ........................................................................................... 257
Clearing the Action Log ................................................................................................... 258
After Upgrading to Panel 11.5 6
Viewing Statistics ....................................................................................................................... 259
Automating Report Generation and Delivery by E-mail .................................................. 260
Viewing Virus and Spam Protection Statistics (Windows) .............................................. 261
About Disk Space Usage Calculation ............................................................................. 262
Server Health Monitor ............................................................................................................... 266
Installing Health Monitor .................................................................................................. 266
Tracking Server Health ................................................................................................... 266
Accuracy of Health Monitor Values ................................................................................. 268
Configuring Alarms, Trends, and E-mail Notifications .................................................... 268
Updating Health Parameters After Hardware Change .................................................... 268
Monitoring Connections to Panel .............................................................................................. 269
Monitoring User Sessions ............................................................................................... 269
Monitoring FTP Users Sessions...................................................................................... 270
Monitoring Terminal Connections (Windows) ................................................................. 271
Backup and Restoration 272
Configuring Global Backup Settings.......................................................................................... 274
Configuring Panel for Using FTP Repository ............................................................................ 275
Backing Up the Entire Server .................................................................................................... 276
Backing Up Individual Accounts and Sites ................................................................................ 276
Scheduling Backups .................................................................................................................. 277
Restoring Data from Backup Archives ...................................................................................... 279
Downloading Backup Files from Server .................................................................................... 281
Uploading Backup Files to Server ............................................................................................. 281
Removing Backup Files from Server ......................................................................................... 282
Backup Logs .............................................................................................................................. 282
Shared Files and Folders 283
File Sharing Settings ................................................................................................................. 284
Sharing and Protecting Files ..................................................................................................... 285
Sharing Files with Other Users Within the Organization ................................................. 286
Publishing Files for Partners ........................................................................................... 287
Publishing Files for Your Customers ............................................................................... 289
Uploading Your Files to a Private Directory on the Server ............................................. 290
Transferring Large Files that Cannot Be Sent by E-mail ................................................ 291
Accessing and Working with Files................................................................................... 292
Customers and Resellers 303
Hosting Plans and Subscriptions ............................................................................................... 305
Relationship Between Plans and Subscriptions .............................................................. 306
Setting Up Hosting Plans ................................................................................................ 308
Setting Up Add-on Plans ................................................................................................. 311
Subscribing Customers to Plans ..................................................................................... 312
Managing Customers ...................................................................................................... 314
Managing Subscriptions .................................................................................................. 317
Serving Non-Technical Customers ................................................................................. 321
Reseller Plans ........................................................................................................................... 322
Setting Up Reseller Plans ............................................................................................... 323
Subscribing Resellers to Plans ....................................................................................... 323
Website Management 324
Quick Start with Parallels Panel ................................................................................................ 326
Set Up Your First Website ............................................................................................... 327
Set Up Mail Accounts ...................................................................................................... 331
After Upgrading to Panel 11.5 7
View Site Visit Statistics .................................................................................................. 350
Customer Account Administration ............................................................................................. 350
Changing Your Password and Contact Information ........................................................ 354
Viewing Subscription Summary ...................................................................................... 355
Managing Account Balance and Invoices ....................................................................... 362
Ordering More Resources ............................................................................................... 366
Viewing Statistics ............................................................................................................ 368
(Advanced) Managing Auxiliary User Accounts .............................................................. 370
Websites and Domains ............................................................................................................. 377
Domains and DNS .......................................................................................................... 378
Hosting Settings .............................................................................................................. 395
Website Content .............................................................................................................. 413
(Advanced) Restricting Access to Content ..................................................................... 418
Previewing Websites ....................................................................................................... 420
Web Applications ............................................................................................................ 421
(Advanced) Website Security .......................................................................................... 429
(Advanced) Extended Website Management ................................................................. 435
Creating Sites with Presence Builder ........................................................................................ 467
Getting Familiar With Presence Builder .......................................................................... 470
Creating a Website .......................................................................................................... 472
Importing Sites from SiteBuilder 4.5................................................................................ 473
Editing Websites ............................................................................................................. 474
Saving and Loading Copies of a Website ....................................................................... 513
Publishing a Website to the Internet ............................................................................... 515
Publishing a Website Copy to Facebook ........................................................................ 516
Viewing Site Visits Statistics, Comments, and New Orders on the Dashboard .............. 518
Deleting Websites ........................................................................................................... 520
FTP Access to Your Websites ................................................................................................... 521
Changing FTP Access Credentials ................................................................................. 521
Adding FTP Accounts ..................................................................................................... 522
Setting Up Anonymous FTP Access ............................................................................... 524
Mail Accounts ............................................................................................................................ 526
Adding Mail Accounts ...................................................................................................... 527
Configuring Mail Account ................................................................................................ 528
(Advanced) Configuring Global Mail Settings ................................................................. 535
Using Mailing Lists .......................................................................................................... 536
Scheduling Tasks ...................................................................................................................... 537
Scheduling Tasks (Linux) ................................................................................................ 538
Scheduling Tasks (Windows) .......................................................................................... 540
Website Databases ................................................................................................................... 542
Creating Databases ........................................................................................................ 543
Accessing Databases ...................................................................................................... 543
Copying Databases ......................................................................................................... 544
Exporting and Importing Databases ................................................................................ 544
Managing Database User Accounts ............................................................................... 545
Accessing Databases with ODBC (Windows) ................................................................. 546
Backing Up and Recovering Websites ...................................................................................... 547
Backing Up Data ............................................................................................................. 548
Managing Backup Files ................................................................................................... 554
Restoring Data ................................................................................................................ 556
Appendix A: Properties of Hosting Plans and Subscriptions 558
Visibility of Hosting Features in the Control Panel .................................................................... 560
Resources ................................................................................................................................. 561
Permissions ............................................................................................................................... 564
Hosting Parameters ................................................................................................................... 568
PHP Settings ................................................................................................................... 571
Web Server (Apache) ................................................................................................................ 571
Mail ............................................................................................................................................ 572
After Upgrading to Panel 11.5 8
DNS ........................................................................................................................................... 573
Performance .............................................................................................................................. 573
Logs & Statistics ........................................................................................................................ 574
Applications ............................................................................................................................... 574
Additional Services .................................................................................................................... 574
Appendix B: Properties of Reseller Plans and Subscriptions 575
Resources ................................................................................................................................. 576
Permissions ............................................................................................................................... 577
IP Addresses ............................................................................................................................. 577
Applications ............................................................................................................................... 578
Appendix C: Event Parameters Passed by Event Handlers 579
Administrator information updated ............................................................................................ 581
Service stopped ......................................................................................................................... 581
Service started ........................................................................................................................... 581
Service restarted ....................................................................................................................... 581
IP address created .................................................................................................................... 581
IP address updated ................................................................................................................... 581
IP address deleted..................................................................................................................... 581
Session settings updated .......................................................................................................... 582
Customer account created ........................................................................................................ 582
Customer account updated ....................................................................................................... 582
Customer account deleted ........................................................................................................ 582
Customer account status updated ............................................................................................. 583
Customer's interface preferences updated ............................................................................... 583
Customer GUID updated ........................................................................................................... 583
Reseller account created ........................................................................................................... 583
Reseller account updated .......................................................................................................... 584
Reseller account deleted ........................................................................................................... 584
Reseller account status updated ............................................................................................... 584
Reseller's interface preferences updated .................................................................................. 584
Reseller's IP pool updated ......................................................................................................... 584
Disk space limit for reseller account reached ............................................................................ 584
Traffic limit for reseller account reached ................................................................................... 584
Disk space limit for subscription reached .................................................................................. 585
Traffic limit for subscription reached .......................................................................................... 585
Default domain (the first domain added to a subscription/webspace) created ......................... 585
Default domain (the first domain added to a subscription/webspace) updated ........................ 586
Default domain (the first domain added to a subscription/webspace) deleted ......................... 586
Subscription owner changed ..................................................................................................... 586
Default domain, status updated ................................................................................................. 586
Default domain, DNS zone updated .......................................................................................... 586
Default domain, GUID updated ................................................................................................. 586
Subdomain of a default domain created ................................................................................... 586
Subdomain of a default domain updated .................................................................................. 587
Subdomain of a default domain deleted .................................................................................... 587
Default domain, alias created .................................................................................................... 587
Default domain, alias updated ................................................................................................... 588
Default domain, alias deleted .................................................................................................... 588
Default domain, alias DNS zone updated ................................................................................. 589
Reseller account limits updated ................................................................................................ 589
Subscription limits updated ....................................................................................................... 589
Panel user logged in .................................................................................................................. 589
Panel user logged out ............................................................................................................... 589
Panel user failed to log in .......................................................................................................... 589
After Upgrading to Panel 11.5 9
Panel user failed to log in through API 589
Mail account created ................................................................................................................. 590
Mail account updated ................................................................................................................ 590
Mail account deleted.................................................................................................................. 590
Mailing list created ..................................................................................................................... 590
Mailing list deleted ..................................................................................................................... 591
Hosting settings created ............................................................................................................ 591
Standard or frame forwarding hosting created .......................................................................... 592
Hosting settings updated ........................................................................................................... 593
Hosting settings deleted ............................................................................................................ 593
Standard or frame forwarding hosting updated ......................................................................... 593
Standard or frame forwarding hosting deleted .......................................................................... 593
Web user account created ........................................................................................................ 593
Web user account updated ....................................................................................................... 594
Web user account deleted ......................................................................................................... 594
Web application installed ........................................................................................................... 594
Web application reconfigured .................................................................................................... 595
Web application uninstalled ....................................................................................................... 595
Web application upgraded ......................................................................................................... 595
License key updated ................................................................................................................. 595
License key expired ................................................................................................................... 595
Database server created ........................................................................................................... 596
Database server updated .......................................................................................................... 596
Database server deleted ........................................................................................................... 596
Database created ...................................................................................................................... 596
Database deleted ...................................................................................................................... 596
Database user account created ................................................................................................ 597
Database user account updated ............................................................................................... 597
Database user account deleted ................................................................................................. 597
Parallels Plesk Panel component updated or added ................................................................ 598
Reseller plan created ................................................................................................................ 598
Reseller plan updated ............................................................................................................... 598
Reseller plan deleted ................................................................................................................. 598
Service plan of reseller created ................................................................................................. 598
Service plan of reseller updated ................................................................................................ 598
Service plan of reseller deleted ................................................................................................. 599
Service plan of administrator created ........................................................................................ 599
Service plan of administrator updated ....................................................................................... 599
Service plan of administrator deleted ........................................................................................ 599
Additional FTP account created 600
Additional FTP account updated 600
Additional FTP account deleted 600
Server health status changed .................................................................................................... 601
Update available ........................................................................................................................ 601
Update installed ......................................................................................................................... 601
This chapter is intended to the users who switched to Panel 11.5 either from Plesk
In this chapter:
Upgrade from Earlier Panel Versions ................................................................ 11
Upgrade from Small Business Panel ................................................................. 14
C H A P T E R 1
After Upgrading to Panel 11.5
Panel 9 and earlier or from Parallels Small Business Panel. The chapter describes the
main changes in the business model of Panel 11.5 comparing to these products.
After Upgrading to Panel 11.5 11
Upgrade from Earlier Panel Versions
Compared to the previous versions of Plesk software (Plesk 9 and earlier), Parallels
Plesk Panel 10 introduces the following changes:
User accounts. In Panel 11, there are no client accounts and domain administrator
accounts. For users who need to resell hosting services and host their own
websites, you will set up reseller accounts. For users who do not need to resell
hosting services, but only host their own websites, you will set up customer
accounts.
Customers can create user accounts in the Panel if they want to allow other users
to access the Panel for managing websites, installed applications, or use e-mail
services. In 11, customers can create any number of users for access to their
Panel, and set up multiple additional FTP accounts for access to the webspace.
Service plans. In Panel 11, there are no reseller, client, or domain templates.
Instead, there are service plans that you create according to your service offerings:
Reseller plans for signing up resellers, and hosting plans, for signing up customers
who do not need to resell services. After plans are created, you create reseller or
customer accounts and subscribe them to the plans - and the users are provisioned
with the necessary resources and authorized to perform operations in the Panel.
The most important change brought in by service plans is that, unlike old Plesk
templates, they are not applied only once, during the initial resources provisioning,
but remain connected to them, so that modifications of a plan change the
provisioned resources and privileges.
In addition to hosting plans, there are also add-on plans. You can use them to
allocate more resources and services to customers.
Subscriptions. Multi-domain hosting subscriptions replace domains. Instead of
creating domains for your customers, you subscribe them to a hosting plan, or, in
other words, you create a subscription for the customer. Actually, not only
customers can be subscribed to hosting services and host their websites and mail,
the Panel administrator and resellers can have their own subscriptions as well,
which they may use for their own purposes.
Subscriptions can be created based on service plans or configured manually.
When subscribing a new customer to your services in Panel 11, you specify a
domain name at the first step. A customer's subscription is always linked to a
domain, which is identified by such attributes as domain name, IP address and
system user account. All subscriptions are named after the domains to which they
are linked. This link is permanent and cannot be broken in any way, so moving a
domain from one subscription to another is impossible. However, you can still
rename domains.
You can host a number of websites under a single subscription, and you can create
several subscriptions for a single customer account.
Allocation of resources. In previous versions of Plesk, resources were allocated to
reseller accounts, client accounts, and domains. In Panel 11, resources are
allocated to resellers and hosting service subscriptions. Customer accounts in
Panel 11 do not get any resource allocations directly, so they cannot redistribute
them among subscriptions that they purchase. All resources allocated to a single
subscription are shared among all websites hosted in the webspace associated with
the subscription.
12 After Upgrading to Panel 11.5
Two separate panels: Server Administration Panel and Control Panel. System
Objects in previous versions of Plesk
Objects in Panel 11
Reseller account
Reseller account
administration, and customer and reseller account management tasks are
performed in Server Administration Panel. All operations related to managing
websites, hosting features, and mail accounts are performed in Control Panel.
Server Administration Panel provides links for access to Control Panel: You can
use them to log in to Control Panel and manage websites on behalf of your
resellers and customers.
Changes in organization of subdomain-related directories. Due to safety reasons, Panel
now stores content and configuration of hosted subdomains in separate directories:
/<VHOST>/<subdomain_name>, the directory that contains HTTP/HTTPs
documents (unlike the earlier versions that separated HTTP and HTTPS
documents).
/<VHOST>/<subdomains>/<subdomain_name>, the service directory that
keeps subdomain configuration. We strongly recommend that you do not
change the content of this directory.
What Happens When You Upgrade or Migrate to Panel 11
When you upgrade or migrate to Panel 11, accounts, domains, users, and domain
templates are transformed according to the following schemes:
Reseller accounts are transferred without changes, and resources are allocated to
them by means of custom subscription, which are not bound to plans.
Client accounts become customer accounts, and after upgrade or migration is
finished, you need to perform either of the following operations to make sure that
the accounts fit in the new business model:
Redistribute former clients' resources among the subscriptions belonging to
them.
Convert customers to resellers and assign the existing subscriptions to them.
This can be done if the customer accounts did not belong to a reseller before
upgrade or migration.
Domains are converted to individual subscriptions. The subscriptions are assigned
to the administrator, resellers, or customers, depending on whom the former
domains belonged to.
Domain administrator accounts are converted to user accounts, which are assigned
to the customers who own the corresponding domains.
Domain templates belonging to the server administrator and resellers are converted
to hosting plans.
Reseller templates are converted to reseller plans.
The following table summarizes the conversion of business objects.
After Upgrading to Panel 11.5 13
Client account
Customer account
Domain
Subscription (Custom)
Domain administrator account
User account
Reseller template
Reseller plan
Domain template
Hosting plan
14 After Upgrading to Panel 11.5
Upgrade from Small Business Panel
Next in this section:
Differences between SBP and Panel 11 ............................................................ 14
Next in this section:
Extended User Role Permissions ...................................................................... 15
Presence Builder Tool ....................................................................................... 16
SSL Protection .................................................................................................. 16
Web Apps.......................................................................................................... 17
Extended Mail Management .............................................................................. 17
Other Panel Features ........................................................................................ 17
This chapter is intended for users who have migrated from Parallels Small Business Panel
(SBP) to Parallels Plesk Panel and want to know about changes in management operations,
as well as about new product possibilities. If you want to learn more about the migration
procedure, refer to Installation, Upgrade, and Migration Guide, section Migrating from Parallels Small
Business Panel.
Migration to Panel is almost seamless as Panel allows you to perform the majority of tasks
you did in SBP. The main difference you may find is that some functions are now available in
new locations or have a slightly different effect. Moreover, Panel provides you with a number
of features unavailable in SBP, such as enhanced user role permissions, the Presence
Builder tool, or access to new web apps. Learn more about product differences in the section
Differences between SBP and Panel 11 (on page 14).
After the migration, you will use Panel in Power User view - a replacement of the SBP
interface. Power User view is almost identical to the SBP user interface. Panel in this view is,
in essence, Control Panel with server management capabilities. For more information on
Power User view, refer to the section The Panel GUI (on page 20).
Differences between SBP and Panel 11
User interfaces of SBP and Panel in Power User view are almost identical. Therefore, here
we will discuss only the most important changes to the way you work with Panel.
After Upgrading to Panel 11.5 15
Extended User Role Permissions
SBP permission
Panel permission
Migration result comments
Manage users
Manage roles
Manage users and roles
The permission is granted, if
one of the SBP permissions is
granted.
Manage websites and
domains
Create and manage sites
Configure log rotation
Configure anonymous FTP service
Create and manage scheduled tasks
Create and manage databases
Configure and perform data backup
and restoration
View statistics
Design sites in Presence Builder
Create and manage additional FTP
accounts
Manage DNS settings
Install and manage Java applications
Change server settings
-
The permission is not migrated,
as Panel allows changing
server settings to users with the
Administrator role only.
Manage mail
Create and manage mail accounts
Create and manage mailing lists
Update personal
information
-
The permission is not migrated,
as Panel allows changing
personal information to all
users.
-
Upload and manage files
By default, this permission is
denied after migration.
-
Configure spam filter
By default, this permission is
denied after migration.
-
Configure antivirus
By default, this permission is
denied after migration.
Panel, comparing to SBP, allows more accurate adjustment of user role privileges due to a
larger number of available permissions. For example, Panel allows dividing users on those
who can manage mail accounts and those who can manage company mailing lists. As Panel
has the extended list of permissions, some of SBP permissions can migrate into a number of
related Panel permissions. For better understanding how permissions are migrated, refer to
the table below.
For more information on user role properties, refer to the section User Roles (on page 371).
16 After Upgrading to Panel 11.5
Presence Builder Tool
While using SBP, you could easily create your own websites with the Site Editor tool. For the
same purposes, Panel provides you with the much more powerful tool, Presence Builder.
Comparing to Site Editor, Presence Builder offers:
New intuitive interface that allows creating websites in less number of steps.
About 100 website templates filled with content that you can use as a basis for your sites.
Additional components that can be easily integrated with your site, such as the online
store or the embedded video.
Integration of your website with Facebook and much more.
For more information on Presence Builder, refer to the section Building Websites with Presence
Builder (on page 467).
Note that websites created in Site Editor are not compatible with Presence Builder.
Nevertheless, if Site Editor is installed in Panel, you can edit such websites with it. In that
case, websites in Websites & Domains list will contain the additional button Edit in SiteBuilder 4 or
Site Editor.
SSL Protection
Panel allows you to secure connections to your websites the same way as you did in SBP.
That means you can obtain SSL certificates in Server > Tools & Settings > SSL Certificates and
assign them to IP addresses in Server > Tools & Settings > IP Addresses. As in SBP, you can
assign only one certificate per IP address. Thus, if your hosting resources include one
shared IP address, you can secure only one website. Panel provides enhanced SSL
protection features that allow you to resolve this problem:
Separate SSL certificates for websites.
If you use Panel on a Linux operating system with the SNI technology support, it is
possible to use authentic SSL certificates for sites hosted on shared IP addresses. In
other words, Panel allows using separate SSL certificate for each website. Learn more
about separate SSL certificates in the section SSL and Shared IP Addresses (Linux) (on page
150).
Shared SSL certificate for a number of websites.
If you use Panel on a Windows operating system, it is possible to use one shared SSL
certificate to secure connections to all sites. In that case, certificate is assigned to a
domain that shares it with others. That domain is called master SSL domain. In other
words, all websites will use common SSL certificate, despite of the fact it is issued to only
one of your websites. Learn more about shared SSL certificates in the section SSL and
Shared IP Addresses (Windows) (on page 150).
The process of assigning an SSL certificate to a website is covered in the section Securing
Connections with SSL Certificates (on page 430).
After Upgrading to Panel 11.5 17
Web Apps
Comparing to SBP, the app management in Panel has little or no changes. As in SBP, the
list of available web apps is accessed through the Applications tab. For more information on
app management, refer to the section Using Website Applications (on page 421).
Note that the uploading of your own app packages is now performed by means of Application
Vault. Vault is the local Panel repository of web apps. Besides of extending the list of
available apps, it allows you to update apps, configure their server-wide settings, and carry
out some other operations. For more information on Application Vault, refer to the section
Web Applications (on page 177).
Extended Mail Management
Mail management in Panel slightly varies from those in SBP. General mail settings are now
available in Mail > Change Settings, while other settings are located in Server > Settings > Mail.
Comparing to SBP mail functionality, Panel provides a number of additional mail features:
Enhanced spam protection:
Server black and white lists.
Use these lists to always reject or always receive mail from selected servers. Learn
more on black and white mail lists in the section Server-wide Black and White Lists (on
page 90).
Extended SpamAssassin settings.
Panel allows you to configure SpamAssassin more accurately. For example, you have
access to such settings as spam filter sensitivity or SpamAssassin's black and white
lists. Moreover, you can configure spam filter individually for each mail account. Learn
more in the Protecting from Spam (on page 530) section.
Monitoring mail server message queue (on Linux platforms).
This can be helpful when your mail server is overloaded and cannot cope with the amount
of received messages. You can find out the reason that caused the overload using the
mail queue. Learn more about message queue in the section Mail Congestion and Message
Queue (Linux) (on page 104).
Other Panel Features
On top of main changes described above, Panel contains a number of features unavailable
in SBP at all. These are event management, server health monitoring, custom branding
themes and many more. The scope of this chapter does not allow to cover all of them. For
the detailed information on other server management operations, refer to certain sections of
this guide.
Parallels Plesk Panel is designed to help IT specialists manage web, DNS, mail and
In this chapter:
About Panel Users ............................................................................................ 19
The Panel GUI .................................................................................................. 20
C H A P T E R 2
About Parallels Plesk Panel
other services through a comprehensive and user-friendly GUI. It is a hosting control
panel, an intermediary between system services and users. For example, when a user
creates a website through the Panel GUI, Panel propagates this request to a web
server, either Apache or IIS, and the latter adds a new virtual host to the system. This
method of administering all system services from a single web interface reduces
maintenance costs and gives administrators more flexibility and control.
How Can I Use Panel?
Panel is an essential instrument for hosting service providers (HSPs) - companies that
sell shared and dedicated hosting accounts. Being installed on a server, Panel enables
HSPs to organize server resources into packages and offer these packages to their
customers. The customers are companies and individuals who need web presence but
do not have the necessary IT infrastructure. Learn more about the Panel intended
audience in the section About Panel Users (on page 19).
Can I Customize Panel to Address My Needs?
Each Panel user group is provided with their own GUI that is customized to fully meet
their needs. Thus, HSPs get tools for offering hosting services, including an integrated
billing solution that automates their business. By contrast, companies that use Panel to
manage their own web infrastructure do not have hosting selling capabilities in their
GUI. Instead, they can perform server management operations (such as system
recovery, web server configuration, and so on). Learn more about the Panel interface
in the section The Panel GUI (on page 20).
Next in this chapter we explain how different user groups should use Panel to gain all
its benefits.
About Parallels Plesk Panel 19
About Panel Users
Panel is a web hosting panel that targets four user groups:
Power users.
These are companies that buy VPS hosting with preinstalled Panel or deploy it by
themselves on their IT infrastructure. Panel allows such customers not only to
manage various aspects of their web presence but also to have full control over
server management operations, such as server backup, configuration of PHP
settings, and so on. For example, web design studios use Panel as a platform for
web development. Panel allows them to test created websites and present the
results to clients.
Hosting service providers (HSPs).
HSPs use Panel for two main purposes. First, as an easy tool for services
configuration. Thus, providers do not need to separately configure web or FTP
server - everything is done in the Panel GUI. Once services are configured, HSPs
can combine them with server resources (like disk space or traffic) into hosting
packages (service plans). For example, one package can contain a website, mail
accounts, and a number of web applications. These packages are then sold to
HSPs' clients - hosting customers and resellers.
Resellers.
These are companies that resell hosting services provided by HSPs. They use
Panel to buy hosting resources in bulk, and then split the resources into smaller
packages, and sell them to their customers. All server management is performed by
HSPs, allowing resellers to reduce their costs and concentrate on offering services
to end-users.
Customers.
These are the end-users of Panel. By subscribing to one of the hosting plans
offered by an HSP or a reseller, they get access to Panel and manage the services
they have bought. They can create sites, fill them with content, add mail accounts,
and so on.
20 About Parallels Plesk Panel
The Panel GUI
For convenience, Panel tools for performing server and account management tasks are
divided between two web interfaces called panels: Server Administration Panel and Control
Panel. In earlier Panel versions, each panel had its own unique responsibilities:
The Control Panel focused on web hosting operations and had all means to create and
manage websites, mailboxes, and so on.
The Server Administration Panel was in charge of server maintenance and accounts
management.
If administrators needed to perform a web hosting management task, for example, add a
mailbox under a certain customer’s account, they located the account in the Server
Administration Panel and then opened the account in the Control Panel. As Panel evolved
over time, the border between the panels has become subtle. Now, the only significant
difference between the two panels is that tools for serving customers and resellers are
available only in the Server Administration Panel. As for the other functions, the panels are
quite similar: Both of them allow you to maintain a server and manage web hosting. If you do
not use Panel for selling hosting services, you can choose any of these two panels.
The brief description of each panel is provided below, but before we go into details, we would
like to acquaint you with Panel views because views and panels are tightly connected.
Panel Views
Each Panel user group has its own Panel usage scenarios. The GUI can be configured to
better meet the needs of a certain group by rearranging tools between different web
interfaces and hiding odd tools. For example, power users may prefer to use only the Control
Panel with tools for server management, whereas hosting service providers use both panels
with all available tools; shared hosting customers use the Control Panel without server
management facilities. Such a user-targeted combination of available panels and tools is
called view. Learn more about the views in the section Interface Views (on page 24).
Server Administration Panel
About Parallels Plesk Panel 21
The Server Administration Panel is the main instrument of hosting providers that allows them
to serve their customers and maintain a server. Here, for example, the administrator creates
new hosting plans and customer accounts, configures server-wide settings of system
services, and so on. In addition, the administrator can set up Panel to manage web hosting
right from the Server Administration Panel (create websites and mail accounts for their
customers, install web apps, and so on). Learn more in the section Interface Views (on page
24).
Control Panel
22 About Parallels Plesk Panel
The main task of the Control Panel is managing hosting services. Customers use this panel
to add domains and mailboxes, manage website content and so on. The administrator can
use this panel to create their own hosting accounts - webspaces or access customer
accounts. Learn more about webspaces and hosting management in the chapter Web Hosting
Management (on page 324).
Power users also use the Control Panel but in Power User view. In this view, the Control
Panel gets additional capabilities for server administration. Thus, power users can not only
maintain their websites but control various server parameters, for example, switch off unused
Apache modules or perform Panel update. Learn more about interface views in the section
Interface Views (on page 24).
Parallels Plesk Panel Suite Components
In addition to the standard Panel functionality, Parallels Plesk Panel suite offers two optional
components that significantly increase Panel capabilities: Customer & Business Manager
and Presence Builder. These components are tightly integrated with Panel and have their
own user interfaces.
Customer & Business Manager.
About Parallels Plesk Panel 23
Customer and Business Manager (hereafter referred to as Business Manager) is an
Next in this section:
Interface Views .................................................................................................. 24
Customizing Power User View .......................................................................... 25
optional solution that automates all business operations, for example, charging customers
and generating invoices. Note that Customer and Business Manager is an optional
component and you may decide to use another solution or perform business operations
manually. Learn more about Business Manager in the Administrator's Guide to Parallels
Customer and Business Manager.
Presence Builder.
Presence Builder is a site building tool that helps customers create polished,
professional-looking web sites in record time based on more than 100 site templates.
Learn more about the tool in the section Building Websites with Presence Builder (on page
467).
24 About Parallels Plesk Panel
Interface Views
As mentioned earlier, each Panel user group carries out their own set of tasks through Panel.
To better meet user needs, Panel offers two interface views: Service Provider and Power
User. These views define what panels you use, what tools are present in these panels, and
how the tools are organized.
Service Provider view.
This view is convenient for HSPs as it is intended for selling hosting services. It has all
the features required to create and manage customer accounts, subscriptions, and
service plans. This view includes the Server Administration Panel and the Control Panel.
Power User view.
This view is the best for power users - those who use Panel solely for personal needs,
such as for maintaining a company portal or a mail server. In this view, both server
administration and hosting services management take place in the Control Panel. As this
view does not assume a reselling service to others is needed, it does not provide facilities
for managing hosting plans, subscriptions, resellers, and customers. Also, as the server
administration functions are included in the Control Panel in this view, the Server
Administration Panel becomes unavailable.
This view can be tailored to needs of an administrator if you select Custom view in the
view selector. For details on how to do the customization, read Customizing Power User View
(see page 25).
You can change the Panel view any time from Tools & Settings > Interface Management.
Hosting Operations in Server Administration Panel
By default, when you want to perform an operation in a certain hosting account (for example,
create a mailbox), you open this account with the link on the Domains or Subscriptions pages.
The account is opened in a new window.
Since Panel 10.4, there has been no need to open hosting accounts in separate windows.
This may be convenient when you want to perform a series of hosting operations on a group
of accounts or you are just accustomed to carrying out all hosting tasks from a single GUI as
in previous Panel versions. You can set Panel to perform all hosting operations in the Server
Administration Panel on the Tools & Settings > Interface Management page. Once you activate
the option, Panel will open hosting accounts in the interface that is similar to the Control
Panel but shown on the current page of the Server Administration Panel.
About Parallels Plesk Panel 25
Customizing Power User View
Power User view has a subtype, Custom View (available in Tools & Settings > Interface
Management), which serves two main purposes:
To simplify the user experience of administrators who use managed hosting.
Some administrators carry out only basic administration tasks (monitoring system
services, administering user accounts, and so on) leaving more complex tasks, usually
server and services configuration, to the support service of a service provider. This user
group wants to have only tools they really need and hide the other tools.
Make Panel safer and more comfortable.
Administrators can voluntarily revoke some of their permissions to hide the tools they do
not need in everyday operations and return to the full-featured Power User view only if
they need some system tuning (for example, to turn on server backups).
If you go to the Tools & Settings > Custom View Settings page (the Administrative Tools tab), you
can select the tools the administrator will see in this view. The view settings may be
unavailable if the service provider who gave you access to Panel has decided to lock Custom
view.
Locking Custom View and Hiding Custom View Settings
To lock Custom view means to limit the selection of Panel features available to the
administrator and disallow any changes to the features list. Thus, when Custom view is
locked, it is impossible to switch to any other view from the GUI (or API RPC) or change the
Custom view settings. Generally, if you are a service provider, you can make some tools
unavailable to administrators, and, thus, separate Panel administration into two parts:
Day-by-day operations. These operations are performed by the Panel administrator, the
person who purchased the web hosting.
Complex configuration and maintenance. These operations are accomplished by your
support team. Such operations may include configuration of a network, DNS, web server
and so on.
If a Panel administrator needs a certain feature and is unable to find it, your support team
turns this feature on by unlocking Custom view, modifying the view settings, and locking the
view again.
Custom view is locked only through a command-line call of the poweruser utility:
poweruser --on -simple true -lock true
The lock is removed by calling poweruser --on -lock false.
26 About Parallels Plesk Panel
Custom View and Webspaces
The peculiarity of Custom view is that you can instantly adjust permissions, hosting
parameters, PHP settings, and other webspace parameters of all webspaces you have
created in this view. This is possible because each webspace you create in this view derives
from the artificial Custom service plan that is not visible in the plans list. The settings of this
plan are available in Tools & Settings > Custom View Settings. When you change the settings, the
changes (if possible) are automatically applied to all webspaces under the Custom plan.
Another point that deserves attention is that the Custom plan has a special permission,
Ability to create, remove, and switch among webspaces. If this permission is cleared in the
GUI, it is not possible to create webspaces in Custom view.
If you need to adjust custom view settings through the command-line, use the admin utility.
Learn more about the utility options in Parallels Plesk Panel 11.5 for Linux (Windows): Reference for
Command Line Utilities.
In this chapter:
Apache Web Server (Linux) .............................................................................. 28
IIS Web Server (Windows) ................................................................................ 41
C H A P T E R 3
Web Servers
28 Web Servers
Apache Web Server (Linux)
Parallels Plesk Panel for Linux uses the Apache HTTP Server (http://httpd.apache.org/
http://httpd.apache.org/) for hosting websites. Apache itself does not operate with
websites; it manages virtual hosts - web resources identified either by an IP address or
a host name. When you create a site, Panel adds a new virtual host to Apache so that
the site becomes available through the web server.
By default, to achieve better performance when delivering web content, Apache is
supplemented with another web server - nginx. For the details about how Apache is
integrated with nginx in Panel and how to make Apache a standalone server, see
Apache with nginx (on page 30).
Default Web Server Configuration
The file /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf defines Apache configuration for all virtual
hosts in the system. The configuration files for virtual hosts are on the lowest level of
the configuration files hierarchy. They are included into the Apache configuration file
(last_httpd.conf) through several levels of inclusion using the include directive. The
nginx web server is configured similarly: the /etc/nginx/nginx.conf file includes
the configuration files of all virtual hosts through several levels of inclusion. To learn
about the hierarchy of configuration files, see Web Server Configuration Files in the
Advanced Administration Guide.
Each virtual host in the system has two files - last_httpd.conf and
last_nginx.conf - that define default Apache and nginx configuration for this virtual
host correspondingly. These files (located in
/var/www/vhosts/system/<domain_name>/conf/) are generated automatically
based on so-called configuration templates. Therefore, if you want to change the
default web server configuration, you should adjust these template files. Learn how to
do this in the Changing Virtual Hosts Settings Using Configuration Templates in the Advanced
Administration Guide.
Custom Web Server Configuration
Website owners may need custom web server capabilities that are not provided by the
default configuration. For example, unusual types of index files or the restricted access
to the site by IP address. This can be done by overriding the default configuration for
specific customers.
The default web server configuration can be overridden on the following levels:
Service plan
The configuration defined on the service plan level overrides the default
configuration. You can set any Apache and nginx directives for a particular service
plan. These settings are stored in Panel database and will be applied to all
customers’ (plan subscribers’) websites by default. See Web Server (Apache) (on
page 571).
Web Servers 29
Website (virtual host)
Next in this section:
Apache with nginx ............................................................................................. 30
Adjusting Apache Settings for Virtual Hosts....................................................... 34
Adjusting nginx Settings for Virtual Hosts .......................................................... 35
Optimizing Apache Web Server......................................................................... 38
The custom virtual host (website) configuration overrides the configuration defined
in its service plan. When you set Apache and nginx directives for a particular
website, your directives are saved in the vhost.conf, vhost_ssl.conf and
vhost_nginx.conf files (located in
/var/www/vhosts/system/<domain_name>/conf/).
You can configure web server settings for a website (virtual host) in two ways:
By specifying your settings in the Control Panel. When you save your changes,
Panel creates corresponding directives in the virtual host configuration files. For
details, see Adjusting Apache Settings for Virtual Hosts (on page 34) and Adjusting
nginx Settings for Virtual Hosts (on page 35).
By editing configuration files manually. For details, refer to the Advanced
Administration Guide, Virtual Host Configuration Files.
Note: Only the Linux user root can add or modify custom Apache and nginx
configuration files manually.
Note that website settings work only for the selected website and are used instead
of the default settings and the service plan level settings.
See the hierarchy of web server settings on the diagram below.
30 Web Servers
Apache with nginx
You can improve the work of the web server which hosts customer websites by
installing nginx, a supplementary high-performance web server which is typically used
as a reverse proxy server. This web server was specifically designed for delivering
large amounts of static content (such as images, video, css, xml, and so on). As
opposed to Apache, nginx is much more efficient when it comes to handling a large
number of concurrent connections. Another advantage of this web server compared
with Apache is that nginx has a significantly smaller memory footprint per client
connection.
To leverage all the benefits of nginx, Panel configures it as a reverse proxy server that
stands between the Internet and Apache (see the diagram below). This means that
nginx becomes a frontend web server that processes all incoming requests from site
visitors. The requests are sent to Apache which, in turn, distinguishes requests for
static and dynamic content. If a request is for a static file (such as jpg, css, html, and so
on), Apache passes the request through all registered handlers (applies .htaccess
directory-level configuration, rewrites a URL, and so on) and returns to nginx a
response which contains only the location of the requested file on the file system. nginx
locates the file and sends it to the client. If the request is for a dynamic file (such as a
PHP script), Apache executes the file and sends the response to nginx, which delivers
it to the client.
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