Parallels Water System 8.4 User Manual
Parallels® Plesk Control Panel
Parallels Plesk Control Panel 8.4 for
Linux/Unix Administrator's Guide
(Revision 1.0)
Revision 1.0
Copyright Notice
ISBN: N/A
Parallels
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Suite 205
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USA
Phone: +1 (425) 282 6400
Fax: +1 (425) 282 6444
© Copyright 1999-2008,
Parallels, Inc.
All rights reserved
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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
About Plesk 9
Overview of Business Model, Users Accounts and Permissions ................................................ 10
Overview of Software Components Managed by Plesk .............................................................. 12
What's New in This Version ......................................................................................................... 12
Getting Started 13
Logging in to Plesk ...................................................................................................................... 14
If You Forgot Your Password ............................................................................................ 16
Becoming Familiar with Plesk's Interface .................................................................................... 16
Items in the Desktop View ................................................................................................. 18
Items in the Standard View ............................................................................................... 19
Changing Your Password and Contact Information .................................................................... 20
Configuring Your Control Panel 21
Upgrading License Key for Your Control Panel .......................................................................... 22
Upgrading the Trial License Key ....................................................................................... 23
Installing Additional License Keys for Plesk Add-ons ....................................................... 24
Upgrading Your License Key ............................................................................................ 24
Rolling Back to Your Previously Used License Key .......................................................... 25
Securing Your Control Panel ....................................................................................................... 25
Restricting Administrative Access to Control Panel .......................................................... 26
Securing Communication to Server with SSL Encryption ................................................. 27
Setting Up Global Account .......................................................................................................... 30
Creating A Global Account ................................................................................................ 31
Connecting Local Accounts To Your Global Account ....................................................... 31
Switching Between Accounts ............................................................................................ 32
Changing Global Account Password ................................................................................ 32
Disconnecting Local Accounts From Global Account ....................................................... 33
Customizing Your Control Panel ................................................................................................. 33
Changing Interface Language and Skin ............................................................................ 35
Customizing the Control Panel in the Standard View ....................................................... 36
Customizing the Control Panel in the Desktop View......................................................... 48
Adjusting Session Idle Time ........................................................................................................ 53
Configuring and Maintaining Your Server 54
Adding and Removing IP Addresses........................................................................................... 55
Configuring DNS Services ........................................................................................................... 58
Configuring Plesk to Run Behind a Firewall ...................................................................... 61
Configuring Mail Services ............................................................................................................ 62
Setting Up Spam Protection .............................................................................................. 64
Configuring Antivirus ......................................................................................................... 71
Preface 4
Configuring Mailman Mailing List Software ....................................................................... 73
Preventing Your Customers From Sending Mass E-mail ................................................. 73
Configuring Plesk for Database Hosting ..................................................................................... 73
Setting Up Remote Database Hosting .............................................................................. 75
Managing Database Servers............................................................................................. 78
Enabling Support for Adobe ColdFusion ..................................................................................... 80
Enabling Integration with Sitebuilder ........................................................................................... 81
Enabling Support for Miva E-commerce Applications ................................................................. 84
Configuring Statistics ................................................................................................................... 86
Configuring E-mail Notification System ....................................................................................... 86
Configuring Help Desk ................................................................................................................ 90
Adjusting System Date and Time ................................................................................................ 92
Starting, Stopping and Restarting Services ................................................................................ 93
Enabling Piped Logs for Web Server to Reduce the Risk of Web Service Disruption ................ 94
Monitoring Mail Server Message Queue and Troubleshooting Mail Congestion ........................ 94
Scheduling Tasks ........................................................................................................................ 96
Extending Plesk Capabilities with Modules ................................................................................. 98
Installing Modules ............................................................................................................. 99
Configuring and Managing Modules ................................................................................. 99
Removing Modules ......................................................................................................... 100
Serving Your Customers 101
Before You Start Serving Your Customers ............................................................................... 102
Simplifying Setup of User Accounts ................................................................................ 103
Simplifying Setup of Domains and Web Sites ................................................................. 107
Prepackaging Applications Your Customers Can Use.................................................... 111
Predefining Content for New Web Sites ......................................................................... 116
Managing User Accounts .......................................................................................................... 118
Adding User Accounts ..................................................................................................... 119
Modifying User Accounts ................................................................................................ 123
Suspending and Unsuspending User Accounts.............................................................. 128
Removing User Accounts ................................................................................................ 129
Hosting Web Sites ..................................................................................................................... 129
Obtaining Domain Names ............................................................................................... 130
Setting Up Hosting Account for a Web Site .................................................................... 131
Creating and Publishing a Site ........................................................................................ 140
Previewing a Site ............................................................................................................ 147
Deploying Databases ...................................................................................................... 147
Installing Applications ...................................................................................................... 151
Securing E-commerce Transactions with Secure Sockets Layer Encryption ................. 154
Restricting Access to Web Site's Resources with Password Protection ........................ 160
Organizing Site Structure with Subdomains ................................................................... 163
Setting Up Additional Domain Names for a Site (Domain Aliases) ................................. 165
Hosting Personal Web Pages on Your Web Server ....................................................... 168
Setting Up Anonymous FTP Access to the Server ......................................................... 170
Customizing Web Server Error Messages ...................................................................... 172
Customizing DNS Zone Configuration for Domains........................................................ 174
Serving Sites with External Domain Name Servers ........................................................ 178
Serving Domain Names for Sites Hosted on Other Servers (Domain Forwarding) ........ 180
Transferring Domains Between User Accounts .............................................................. 181
Suspending and Unsuspending Domains ....................................................................... 181
Removing Domains ......................................................................................................... 182
Using E-mail Services ............................................................................................................... 183
Creating Mailboxes ......................................................................................................... 184
Setting Up Your E-mail Program for Retrieving Mail from Your Mailbox ........................ 185
Accessing Your Mail from a Web Browser ...................................................................... 186
Protecting Mailboxes from Spam .................................................................................... 187
Protecting Mailboxes from Viruses ................................................................................. 192
Preface 5
Suspending and Unsuspending Mailboxes ..................................................................... 194
Removing Mailboxes ....................................................................................................... 195
Switching off the Mailbox Service When You Have Decided to Turn Your Account into a Mail
Forwarder ........................................................................................................................ 195
Setting Up Mail Forwarding to a Single E-mail Address ................................................. 196
Setting Up Mail Forwarding to Multiple E-mail Addresses .............................................. 198
Removing Mail Forwarders ............................................................................................. 200
Setting Up Automatic Reply ............................................................................................ 201
Switching off Automatic Reply......................................................................................... 203
Setting Up Site-Wide Preferences for Handling Mail to Nonexistent Users (Mail Bounce)204
Introducing Similar Changes to a Number of Mail Accounts at Once ............................. 205
Sending E-mail Notices to Multiple Customers at Once ................................................. 206
Maintaining Mailing Lists ................................................................................................. 211
Using Help Desk for Resolving Your Customers' Issues .......................................................... 215
Viewing Trouble Tickets in Your Help Desk .................................................................... 216
Commenting and Closing Trouble Tickets ...................................................................... 217
Migrating User Accounts, Domain Names and Web Sites from Other Hosting Platforms ........ 218
Performing Migration Within a Single Server .................................................................. 221
Backing Up and Restoring Your Data 223
Backing Up the Entire Server .................................................................................................... 224
Backing Up Individual User Accounts with User's Domains ..................................................... 224
Backing Up Individual Domains (Web Sites) ............................................................................. 225
Scheduling Backups .................................................................................................................. 225
Optimizing Server Performance ...................................................................................... 228
Restoring Data From Backup Archives ..................................................................................... 229
Maintaining Backup Files Repository ........................................................................................ 231
Uploading Backup Files to Server ................................................................................... 231
Downloading Backup Files from Server .......................................................................... 232
Removing Backup Files from Server .............................................................................. 232
Configuring Control Panel for Using FTP Repository ................................................................ 233
Viewing Statistics 234
Adjusting Preferences for Web Statistics Presentation by Webalizer ....................................... 236
Hiding and Unhiding Internal References from Your and Other Sites ............................ 237
Grouping and Ungrouping References from Other Sites ................................................ 238
Hiding and Unhiding Direct Requests ............................................................................. 239
Automating Report Generation and Delivery by E-mail ............................................................ 240
Viewing Log Files and Configuring Recycling of Log Files ....................................................... 242
Monitoring Connections to Control Panel and FTP Services 243
Monitoring Connections to Control Panel .................................................................................. 243
Monitoring Connections to FTP Service .................................................................................... 244
Logging Actions Performed by Your Customers in the Control Panel 245
Setting Up Action Logging ......................................................................................................... 246
Downloading the Action Log ...................................................................................................... 247
Clearing the Action Log ............................................................................................................. 247
Using Centralized Access to Your Numerous Plesk Servers 248
Adding a Server Record ............................................................................................................ 249
Viewing Server Information and Logging in to a Server ............................................................ 249
Preface 6
Removing a Server Record ....................................................................................................... 250
Upgrading Your Control Panel 251
Changing Updater Settings ....................................................................................................... 253
Blocking Access to Updater Functions from the Control Panel ................................................ 254
Appendix A. Advanced Features 255
Using Event Tracking Mechanism ............................................................................................. 255
Adding Event Handlers ................................................................................................... 256
Removing Event Handlers .............................................................................................. 276
Including Directives into Web Server Configuration File ........................................................... 277
Changing Tomcat Java Connector Ports .................................................................................. 278
Restoring Mail Configuration ..................................................................................................... 279
Installing Custom SSL Certificates for Qmail or Courier-IMAP Mail Servers ............................ 279
Installing SSL Certificate for Qmail ................................................................................. 280
Installing SSL Certificates for Courier-IMAP Mail Server ................................................ 282
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
/licenses directory.
Preface
Who Should Read This Guide
This guide is intended for hosting resellers who manage their servers through Plesk and
have access to server administrator's account in Plesk.
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
Preformatted
On-screen computer output
in your command-line
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 a mistake in this guide, or if you have suggestions or ideas on how to
improve this guide, please send your feedback using the online form at
http://www.parallels.com/en/support/usersdoc/. Please include in your report the guide's title,
chapter and section titles, and the fragment of text in which you have found an error.
Plesk is a hosting automation solution that gives hosting providers full control over the
In this chapter:
Overview of Business Model, Users Accounts and Permissions........................ 10
Overview of Software Components Managed by Plesk ..................................... 12
What's New in This Version ............................................................................... 12
C H A P T E R 1
About Plesk
managed Web hosting servers and simplifies setup and management of user accounts,
Web sites, and e-mail accounts.
Plesk is stable, secure and reliable, and the main benefit of using Plesk is that it will
save you and your technical staff much time and effort: all your customers (and
customers of your resellers) will have personal isolated control panel environments and
will be able to manage their sites and e-mail accounts on their own.
10 About Plesk
Overview of Business Model, Users
Accounts and Permissions
Plesk user accounts hierarchy is limited to four user levels:
administrator account,
client accounts,
domain administrator accounts,
e-mail user accounts.
For your customers who need to resell hosting services or host numerous
domains/web sites, you will create client accounts.
Note: for the purpose of hosting your own sites, you should use a special service
account which is created during Plesk setup. The account is registered with the control
panel under the name My Domains.
Customers with access to client accounts can host on the server any number of sites
you allow. They can host the sites of their own and/or resell hosting services to other
users: for that purpose your resellers can create domain administrator accounts for
their own customers.
Customers with access to domain administrator accounts cannot resell Web hosting
services or host more than one site on their hosting accounts. They can only manage
their own sites. In the current implementation of Plesk control panel, domain
administrator accounts can be created only after the respective domains (web sites)
are hosted on the server.
All site owners can set up e-mail accounts for themselves and provide other users with
mail hosting services: for that purpose, they create e-mail user accounts and grant email users with access to control panel.
Site owners can also host personal web pages or small sites for other users under their
domains. However, the owners of such sites usually do not have their own domain
names and cannot have a dedicated control panel environment.
All permissions for operations performed in the control panel you define for a reseller
(client account) allow the reseller to further assign them to his or her customers. The
resource allotments you define for a reseller can be further redistributed among
reseller's customers. For a full list of permissions and resource usage limits you can
define, refer to the Managing User Accounts (on page 118) section.
All quotas you define for a client or domain administrator's account are soft quotas: the
control panel indicates resource overage by showing the respective icons in the control
panel, sends notices by e-mail to the respective users, but it does not automatically
suspend user accounts or Web sites.
About Plesk 11
The control panel does not have a built-in billing system, therefore, we recommend that
you use a third-party solution of your choice, or use Plesk together with Parallels
Business Automation solution.
12 About Plesk
Overview of Software Components
Managed by Plesk
Plesk control panel works in cooperation with the following third-party software
components and services:
Bind DNS server
Apache Web server
ProFTPd FTP server
MySQL and PostgreSQL database servers
Qmail mail server
Courier-IMAP IMAP/POP3 server
Mailman mailing list server
Spamassassin anti-spam software
Dr.Web antivirus
Webalizer and AWStats statistical packages
Tomcat
After installation of Plesk package, all essential services, such as DNS, Web, FTP and
Mail are configured to run with the default optimal settings, so you can start serving
your customers right away. However, we recommend that you review the default
settings to make sure that they satisfy your needs, and create user account templates
and domain templates, which will simplify further setup of hosting accounts.
What's New in This Version
Plesk Control Panel 8.4 offers you the following new features and enhancements:
Simplified installation of site applications. All site applications are sorted by categories,
which makes it easier to choose the right application to install.
DomainKeys support. Now you can use DomainKeys e-mail sender authentication
mechanism to reduce the amount of spam and phishing e-mails that are sent to your
customers. For more information, refer to the chapter Setting Up Spam Protection (on
page 64).
Updated components used with Plesk Control Panel. The latest versions of the following
software can be used with Plesk Control Panel: Acronis True Image Server 9.5,
Parallels Plesk Sitebuilder 4.2, Horde 3.1.7, SPAW 2.0 (editing software used in Plesk
File Manager), Adobe ColdFusion 8.
4PSA VoipNow software support. The VoIP solution developed by 4PSA is now fully
supported by Plesk Control Panel. For information about 4PSA VoipNow, refer to
http://www.4psa.com/index.php?pcat=products&pag=4psavoipnow
This chapter describes the first actions you need to perform after installation of the
In this chapter:
Logging in to Plesk ............................................................................................ 14
Becoming Familiar with Plesk's Interface........................................................... 16
Changing Your Password and Contact Information ........................................... 20
C H A P T E R 2
Getting Started
Plesk Control Panel.
14 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 user name 'admin' and your password into the Login and
Password boxes, respectively. If this is your first login to the freshly
installed control panel, use the default password 'setup'.
4 If you log in for the first time, select the language for your control
panel from the Interface language menu. If you had previously specified
the interface language and saved it in your interface preferences,
leave the User default value selected.
5 Click Login.
After your first login, you should accept the license agreement and then specify the
host name and IP addresses to assign to the server.
6 Read carefully the terms of the License Agreement and, if you agree
to all the terms, select the I agree to the terms of this license agreement and
Do not show it again check boxes.
7 Click Accept to proceed to the post-install configuration.
8 In the Full hostname field, enter your server's host name. This should be
a fully qualified host name but without a trailing dot (for example,
host.domain.tld).
9 Specify the IP address that will be used as the default address of your
server. You have the following two options:
Select one of your existing IP address from the drop-down box. This list is
populated automatically and contains all IP addresses available on the server.
OR
Click the Add IP Address option button, select the network interface and enter the
new IP address and subnet mask in the IP address box.
Note: With Plesk you can mark all your IP addresses as shared or dedicated before
you assign them to your customers. This allows the control panel to distinguish
between them and not to let you assign a dedicated IP address to several
customers at once. A dedicated IP address can be assigned to a single customer,
while a shared IP address can be shared among several user accounts.
10 In the Shared IP section, specify the type for existing addresses: shared
or exclusive. Click the Shared and Exclusive buttons to change the types
of IP addresses.
Getting Started 15
You can skip this stage and define the type of IP addresses later (Server > IP
In this section:
If You Forgot Your Password .............................................................................16
Addresses).
11 In the Administrator's preferences section, change the default
administrator password.
Change the default administrator's password. Enter the new password and confirm
it in the New password and Confirm password fields. The password can have up to 14
symbols. Note that the password is case sensitive.
Note: Do not forget to change the administrator's password from the default one to
your own personalized password; otherwise, access to the control panel under the
administrator account will be available with the default password 'setup', which is
known to many users of Plesk.
12 Click OK.
13 Fill in administrator‘s contact information. Be sure to leave the I would
like to create a default client account check box selected: Plesk assigns Web
sites to client accounts, and selecting this check box will create a
special user account "My Domains", which you will use for hosting
your own Web sites.
14 Click OK.
16 Getting Started
If You Forgot Your Password
You can retrieve your forgotten password in any of the following ways:
Look it up in the /etc/psa/.psa.shadow file on the server's file system.
Use the password reminder in the control panel.
To use the password reminder:
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 Specify your login name and e-mail address registered in the system.
5 Click OK.
Your password will be sent to your e-mail. If your password cannot be sent by email because it was stored by the system in encrypted form, you will be prompted to
set up a new password using a secret code that will be generated for that purpose
and sent to you.
6 Once you received the e-mail from the password reminder, click the
link in the message body.
A new browser window will open.
7 Specify your login name and a new password. The Secret Code field of
the form should be automatically filled by the system, and if it is not,
copy the secret code from the message you received to the clipboard
and paste to the form.
8 Click OK to submit.
Note: You should use the secret code within 24 hours after its generation, otherwise it
will expire and you will need to go through the whole process again.
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.
Getting Started 17
The desktop view can show server statistics and shortcuts to the operations you
frequently perform—everything you may need can now be accessible from a single
screen.
18 Getting Started
You can switch between the views (by installing the appropriate license key) or use a
In this section:
Items in the Desktop View ................................................................................. 18
Items in the Standard View ................................................................................ 19
In this section:
Using Wizards ................................................................................................... 19
combination of them for your control panel. You can also specify what view should be
shown to other control panel users. To customize your control panel, refer to the
Customizing the Control Panel (on page 48) chapter.
Note: When Parallels Plesk Sitebuilder, the site creation and management program, is
installed on the server and Plesk is connected to it, a few more shortcuts related to
Sitebuilder management are added to the Plesk navigation pane. For more information
about connecting Plesk to Sitebuilder and using the shortcuts to Sitebuilder, refer to the
section Enabling Integration with Sitebuilder (on page 81).
Items in the Desktop View
The desktop view originally shows four sections:
Server Information. This shows your hostname, control panel version, operating
system and kernel versions, license key number, and system uptime.
Statistics. This shows average processor load for the last minute, five minutes, and
fifteen minutes, memory and disk space usage, number of served client accounts
and hosted domains (Web sites). The client accounts include accounts of resellers
and customers who have several sites—owners of a single domain are not counted.
Tools. This group shows shortcuts to the operations that you can perform through
the control panel. You can freely add and remove these shortcuts.
Favorites. This group shows five types of shortcuts sorted by type and placed on the
respective tabs. The Clients tab shows the shortcuts to administrative tools available
for a selected user account, the Domains tab shows shortcuts to domain
administration tools, the Mail Accounts tab shows shortcuts to the e-mail account
administration tools. The Shortcuts tab shows all other types of shortcuts that do not
relate to user accounts, domains and e-mail accounts. The Recent tab shows last
ten control panel screens you have been on. The Favorites group also provides
search tool for finding user accounts, web site hosting accounts, and e-mail
accounts. To use the search tool, select the item type from the drop-down box, type
the search criteria (this can be any combination of symbols, search is case
insensitive) and click Search.
Getting Started 19
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:
Clients. This is where you manage your clients and all data related to their accounts.
Domains. This is where you manage Web sites and their respective e-mail services.
Server. This shortcut gives you access to server administration functions.
Modules. This is where you manage the additional modules that extend Plesk
capabilities, such as Firewall, Game Server, VPN and others.
Sessions. When clients, 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.
Master. This shortcut gives you access to centralized management of Plesk enabled
servers.
Help Desk. This is the help desk system integrated with your control panel. You can
use it to view and solve the problems reported to you by your customers.
Help. Provides context sensitive help.
Log Out. When finished working with control panel, click this icon to close your
session.
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
the Up Level icon 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.
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.
20 Getting Started
Changing Your Password and Contact
Information
To update your contact information:
1 Select the Server shortcut in the navigation pane
2 Click the Edit icon in the Administrator information group.
3 Update your information as required, and click OK.
To change your password:
1 Select the Server shortcut in the navigation pane
2 Click the Change Password icon in the Administrator information group.
3 Enter your old and new passwords.
4 Click OK.
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-server.com:8443.
3 Press ENTER. Plesk login screen will open.
4 Click the Forgot your password? link.
5 You will be prompted to specify your login name and e-mail address
registered in the system. 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.
6 If your password cannot be sent by e-mail because it was stored by
the system in encrypted form, you will be prompted to set up a new
password using a secret code that will be generated for that purpose
and sent to your e-mail.
7 Once you received the e-mail from the password reminder, click the
link in the message body. A new browser window will open.
8 At this step, specify your login name and a new password.
The Secret Code field of the form should be automatically filled by the system, and if
it is not, copy the secret code from the message you received to the clipboard and
paste to the form.
9 Click OK to submit.
The instructions on how to restore your password will be sent to your e-mail
address.
This chapter discusses the configuration steps required to set up and manage your
In this chapter:
Upgrading License Key for Your Control Panel ................................................. 22
Securing Your Control Panel ............................................................................. 25
Setting Up Global Account ................................................................................ 30
Customizing Your Control Panel ........................................................................ 33
Adjusting Session Idle Time .............................................................................. 53
C H A P T E R 3
Configuring Your Control Panel
Plesk Control Panel.
22 Configuring Your Control Panel
Upgrading License Key for Your Control
In this section:
Upgrading the Trial License Key ........................................................................ 23
Installing Additional License Keys for Plesk Add-ons ......................................... 24
Upgrading Your License Key ............................................................................. 24
Rolling Back to Your Previously Used License Key ........................................... 25
Panel
Plesk comes with a trial license key, which is automatically installed to the control
panel. This license key allows you to create one user account, host one Web site and
one mail box. Therefore, to fully use the Plesk Control Panel as you need, you should
obtain a license key from Parallels or one of its resellers and install it to the control
panel.
Plesk license keys have a built-in expiration date. This has been implemented to help
prevent fraud and theft. It requires the Plesk software to check with Parallels licensing
server during a 10 day grace period (prior to the expiration date) to verify that the key
has not been reported stolen and is being used in accordance with the End User
License Agreement (that is, installed on only one server). Once this is verified, the
expiration date is prolonged.
Plesk will attempt to connect over TCP/IP to the licensing server through port 5224.
Please make sure that this is not blocked by a firewall. The update process runs
automatically and the Plesk administrator does not need to do anything unless there is
a problem. Should the Plesk key expire, check your firewall and then go to Server >
License Management and click Retrieve Keys. If the key cannot be updated, contact your
reseller or Parallels (if you purchased the license key directly from Parallels).
You can test the connection to the licensing server anytime by going to Server > License
Management and clicking Retrieve Keys.
Configuring Your Control Panel 23
Upgrading the Trial License Key
To upgrade the trial license key:
1 Go to Server > License Management and click Order New Key.
2 The Parallels online store will open in a separate browser window. In
this window, select the items and features you want to include into
your Plesk license and click Submit. In the next steps, indicate the
currency, number of license keys, provide contact details, billing
address, and payment method, and submit the form. The new key will
be sent to the specified e-mail address.
3 Save the new key to the hard drive on your local machine.
4 Open again the License Management screen in Plesk (Server > License
Management) and click Upload Key.
5 Enter the path to the key file that you saved on your local machine or
click Browse to locate it.
6 Select the Replace the currently installed license key with the selected one check
box to confirm that you really want to replace the current license key
with the new one.
If this check box is not selected, the new license key will not be installed and
installation will be aborted.
7 If your new license key allows hosting fewer sites than you already
host on the server, Plesk will stop working. However, to prevent the
control panel from comparing the amount of the resources used and
those covered by the new key, select the Allow the resources usage override
check box.
This might be helpful if you want to temporarily install a license key that covers less
resources and then upgrade it through the control panel interface.
8 Click OK to install the new key to the control panel.
24 Configuring Your Control Panel
Installing Additional License Keys for Plesk Add-ons
To install an additional license key for an add-on Plesk component:
1 Click the Server shortcut in the navigation pane.
2 Click the License Management icon in the System group.
3 Click Order Control Panel Add-Ons.
4 The Parallels online store page listing available add-ons will open in a
separate browser window. On this page, select the add-ons you want
to order and click Submit.
5 Because Plesk add-ons are added to the license keys that already
exist, the Plesk Number Checking System page will open. Enter the
number of your license key to which you add this feature and click
Submit.
6 In the next steps, indicate the currency, number of keys, provide
contact details, billing address, and payment method, and submit the
form. You will be notified by e-mail when your order is processed.
7 When you receive the e-mail notification, return to the License
Management screen (Server > License Management) and click Retrieve Keys to
retrieve the ordered license key. Plesk License Manager will retrieve
the upgraded license key from the Parallels licensing server and
automatically install it to your control panel.
Upgrading Your License Key
If you are planning to expand your customer base and host more sites on the server
than your current license allows, you need to upgrade your license key.
To upgrade the license key:
1 Click the Server shortcut in the navigation pane.
2 Click the License Management icon in the System group.
3 Click Order Control Panel Upgrades.
4 On the Parallels online store page, select the desired upgrade option
and click Submit.
5 In the next step, indicate purchase details and submit the form. You
will be notified by e-mail when your order is processed.
6 After you receive the e-mail notification, return to the License
Management screen (Server > License Management) and click Retrieve Keys to
retrieve the ordered license key. Plesk License Manager will retrieve
the purchased license key from the licensing server and automatically
upload it to your control panel.
Configuring Your Control Panel 25
Rolling Back to Your Previously Used License Key
In this section:
Restricting Administrative Access to Control Panel ........................................... 26
Securing Communication to Server with SSL Encryption................................... 27
To roll back to the license key you previously used:
1 Click the Server shortcut in the navigation pane.
2 Click the License Management icon in the System group.
3 Click Roll Back Key. The previously installed license key will be
restored.
Securing Your Control Panel
26 Configuring Your Control Panel
Restricting Administrative Access to Control Panel
To alleviate security concerns, you may want to restrict administrative access to your
control panel from specific IP addresses.
To allow administrative access to control panel only from specific IP addresses or
networks:
1 Go to Server > Access.
2 Click Add New Network and specify the required IP addresses. Click OK.
To specify subnets, you can use wildcard symbols (*) and subnet masks.
3 Select the Denied from the networks that are not listed option, and click Set.
When prompted to confirm the operation, click OK.
To prohibit administrative access from specific IP addresses or networks:
1 Go to Server > Access.
2 Click Add New Network and specify an IP address. Click OK.
To specify subnets, you can use wildcard symbols (*) and subnet masks.
3 Select the Allowed, excluding the networks in the list option, and click Set.
When prompted to confirm the operation, click OK.
By default Plesk allows multiple simultaneous sessions for several users logged into
the control panel using the same login and password combination. This can be useful
when delegating management functions to other users or in case if you accidentally
close your browser without logging out, thus becoming unable to log in again until your
session expires. You may want to switch off this capability, if you do not need it.
To disallow concurrent sessions for your administrative control panel:
1 Go to Server > Edit.
2 Clear the Allow multiple sessions under administrator's login check box and
click OK.
Configuring Your Control Panel 27
Securing Communication to Server with SSL
Encryption
For security reasons, you can access your control panel only through a secure
connection provided by Secure Sockets Layer-enabled hypertext transfer protocol. All
data you exchange with the Plesk managed server are encrypted, thus preventing
interception of sensitive information. The SSL certificate used in the data encryption
process is automatically generated and installed on the server during installation of the
control panel. This is the so-called self-signed certificate: it is not signed by a
recognized certification authority (CA), therefore, upon attempt to connect to your
control panel, you and your customers will see warning messages in Web browsers.
To gain customer confidence, you should purchase an SSL certificate from a reputable
certification authority, and install it to the control panel.
You can either:
use the facilities for purchasing SSL certificates from GeoTrust, Inc. or GoDaddy
provided by your control panel,
OR
create a certificate signing request (CSR) from the control panel and submit it to the
certification authority of your choice, which will create an SSL certificate for you.
Note: If you are going to use the control panel's facilities for purchasing a certificate
through MyPlesk.com online store, you should not use command line tools for
creating the certificate signing request.
To purchase an SSL certificate from GeoTrust, Inc. or GoDaddy through MyPleskCom
online store and secure your control panel:
1 Go to Server > Certificates. A list of SSL certificates that you have in
your repository will be displayed.
2 Click Add New Certificate.
3 Specify the certificate properties:
Certificate name. This will help you identify this certificate in the repository.
Encryption level. Choose the encryption level of your SSL certificate. We
recommend that you choose a value more than 1024 bit.
Specify your location and organization name. The values you enter should not
exceed the length of 64 symbols.
Specify the host name for which you wish to purchase an SSL certificate. For
example: your-domain.com
Enter your e-mail address.
4 Make sure that all the provided information is correct and accurate, as
it will be used to generate your private key.
5 Click Buy Cert.
Your private key and certificate signing request will be generated — do not delete
them. MyPlesk.com login page will open in a new browser window.
28 Configuring Your Control Panel
6 Register or log in to an existing MyPlesk.com account and you will be
taken step by step through the certificate purchase procedure.
7 Choose the type of certificate that you wish to purchase.
8 Click Proceed to Buy and order the certificate. In the Approver E-Mail
drop-down box, please select the correct Approver e-mail.
The approver e-mail is an e-mail address that can confirm that certificate for
specific domain name was requested by an authorized person.
9 Once your certificate request is processed, you will be sent a
confirmation e-mail. After you confirm, the certificate will be sent to
your e-mail.
10 When you receive your SSL certificate, save it on your local machine
or network.
11 Return to the SSL Certificates repository (Server > Certificates).
12 Click Browse in the middle of the page and navigate to the location of
the saved certificate. Select it, and then click Send File. This will upload
the certificate to the repository.
13 Select the check box corresponding to the certificate you just added,
and click Secure control panel.
To secure your control panel with an SSL certificate from other certificate authorities:
1 Go to Server > Certificates. A list of SSL certificates that you have in
your repository will be displayed.
2 Click Add New Certificate.
3 Specify the certificate properties:
Certificate name. This will help you identify this certificate in the repository.
Encryption level. Choose the encryption level of your SSL certificate. We
recommend that you choose a value more than 1024 bit.
Specify your location and organization name. The values you enter should not
exceed the length of 64 symbols.
Specify the host name for which you wish to purchase an SSL certificate. For
example: your-domain.com
Enter your e-mail address.
4 Make sure that all the provided information is correct and accurate, as
it will be used to generate your private key.
5 Click Request. Your private key and certificate signing request will be
generated and stored in the repository.
6 In the list of certificates, click the name of the certificate you need. A
page showing the certificate properties opens.
7 Locate the CSR section on the page, and copy the text that starts with
the line -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE REQUEST----- and ends with the line -----END
CERTIFICATE REQUEST----- to the clipboard.
Configuring Your Control Panel 29
8 Visit the Web site of the certification authority from which you want to
purchase an SSL certificate, and follow the links on their site to start a
certificate ordering procedure. When you are prompted to specify CSR
text, paste the data from the clipboard into the online form and click
Continue. The certification authority will create an SSL certificate in
accordance with the information you supplied.
9 When you receive your SSL certificate, save it on your local machine
or network.
10 Return to the SSL Certificates repository (Server > Certificates).
11 Click Browse in the middle of the page and navigate to the location of
the saved certificate. Select it, and then click Send File. This will upload
the certificate to the repository.
12 Select the check box corresponding to the certificate you just added,
and click Secure control panel.
In case you need to generate a self-signed certificate, follow this procedure:
1 Go to Server > Certificates. A list of SSL certificates that you have in
your repository will be displayed.
2 Click Add New Certificate.
3 Specify the certificate properties:
Certificate name. This will help you identify this certificate in the repository.
Encryption level. Choose the encryption level of your SSL certificate. We
recommend that you choose a value more than 1024 bit.
Specify your location and organization name. The values you enter should not
exceed the length of 64 symbols.
Specify the host name for which you wish to purchase an SSL certificate. For
example: your-domain.com
Enter your e-mail address.
4 Click the Self-Signed button. Your certificate will be generated and
stored in the repository.
30 Configuring Your Control Panel
Setting Up Global Account
In this section:
Creating A Global Account ................................................................................ 31
Connecting Local Accounts To Your Global Account ......................................... 31
Switching Between Accounts ............................................................................ 31
Changing Global Account Password ................................................................. 32
Disconnecting Local Accounts From Global Account ......................................... 33
Global Account is a Single Sign-On 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, 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.
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.
Note. Single Sign-On technology and the ability to use global accounts can only be
activated through API or Command Line Utility means. Please refer to your Service
Provider or the respective documentation for more information on activating Single
Sign-On.
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