Plesk is a powerful and convenient all-in-one tool for quickly and efficiently performing all your daily website and web application management or web hosting operations. "6% of the websites in the world are managed through the Plesk panel" - about the platform, the developer company in its corporate blog on HabrΓ©. We present you a brief overview of this convenient and probably the most popular hosting platform, the license for which can now be purchased for free until the end of the year from in RUVDS.
βAbout panel, brand and company
Plesk is proprietary software developed in Novosibirsk and first released in the US in 2001. For almost 20 years, the rights to the platform have been acquired by different companies in turn, changing brands and names. Since 2015, Plesk has been an independent Swiss company with several branches (including Novosibirsk) and about 500 employees (including Russian specialists both in the head office and in branches).
The last three versions:
- Plesk 12,5 (2015)
- Plesk Onix (2016-2019)
- Plesk Obsidian (2020)
The panel is multilingual. Written in PHP, C, C++. Support for multiple versions of PHP, as well as Ruby, Python and NodeJS; full Git support; integration with Docker; SEO toolkit. Each Plesk instance is automatically secured with SSL/TLS.
Supported OS: Windows and various versions of Linux. Below you can see the requirements for these OS.
Linux
Windows
The program is available in different assemblies, each of which is designed for its own audience of users. For example, the panel allows administrators to centrally manage all system services through a single web interface and reduce maintenance costs by providing the necessary level of flexibility and control. And for companies selling virtual and dedicated hosting, the panel allows you to organize server resources into packages and offer these packages to clients - companies or individuals who want to host their site on the Internet, but do not have the necessary IT infrastructure for this.
βInfo center
conveniently presented in three sections: for users (separately for the administrator, client, reseller), for hosters / providers and for developers.
Π‘ getting started becomes so clear that the panel is easy to understand even for those who first encountered hosting management. Lessons are step-by-step instructions on six topics:
- Building your first website
- Database creation
- Create an email account
- Adding an additional DNS entry
- Create a site backup
- Changing your password and logging out
There is also ΠΈ with the opportunity to take training courses at the so-called Plesk University. And of course active. . Technical support in Russian is available from Monday to Friday from 04.00 to 19.00 Moscow time; in English - 24x7x365.
Beginning of work
The panel can be installed on a physical server or virtual machine (Linux only) or on a cloud server (official Plesk partners: Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Alibaba Cloud).
For a quick start, default configurations are provided that can be started with a single command:
Note: Plesk is installed without a product license key. You can purchase a license from RUVDS. Or use product, which will work for 14 days for informational purposes.
Ports and protocols used
Ports and protocols for Plesk
Supported browsers
Desktop
- Mozilla Firefox (latest version) for Windows and Mac OS
- Microsoft Internet Explorer 11.x for Windows
- Microsoft Edge for Windows 10
- Apple Safari (latest version) for Mac OS
- Google Chrome (latest version) for Windows and Mac OS
Smartphones and tablets
- Default browser (Safari) on iOS 8
- Default browser on Android 4.x
- Default Browser (IE) on Windows Phone 8
Interface
In Plesk, each user group has its own interface tailored to their needs. The interface for hosting providers includes tools for providing hosting, including an integrated billing system for business automation. Companies that use the platform to manage their own web infrastructure have access to a wide range of server management operations: system restore, web server configuration, and the like. Let's look at the two latest versions of the platform - Plesk Onyx and Plesk Obsidian - through the eyes of a web administrator.
βFeatures for web administrators
User accounts. Create separate user accounts with their own credentials. Define user roles and subscriptions for each user or user group.
Subscriptions. Create a subscription with a specific set of resources and services associated with a maintenance plan and give users access according to their user role. Limit the amount of system resources (CPU, RAM, disk I/O) that can be used by a particular subscription.
User roles. Enable or disable functionality and icons for individual users. Grant different levels of access to different users at the same subscription level.
Maintenance plan. Create a maintenance plan that defines the distribution of your resources, such as the amount of disk space, bandwidth, and other features offered to your customer.
Mail server support. By default, the Postfix mail server and Courier IMAP are installed in Plesk for Linux, and MailEnable is installed in Plesk for Windows.
DKIM, SPF and DMARC Protection. Plesk supports DKIM, SPF, SRS, DMARC for email authentication.
Supported OS. The latest version of Plesk for Linux/Unix supports multiple platforms including Debian, Ubuntu, CentOS, Red Hat Linux, and CloudLinux.
Database management. Scan, restore, report, fix supported databases.
PCI DSS compliant out of the box. Protect your server and achieve PCI DSS compliance on a Linux server.
Task scheduling. Set the time and date to run specific commands or tasks.
System update. Update all system packages available on the server manually or automatically without opening the console.
Plesk Migrator. Migrations without having to use the command line. Supported sources: cPanel, Confixx, DirectAdmin and others.
The server administrator has the ability to change the appearance, and even server administration according to needs. It is possible both for marketing purposes, and just for convenience in work. Can be used . Read more in .
Button customization
The interface has an adaptive design for working from smartphones, it is possible for clients to automatically log into Plesk from external resources without re-authentication (for example, from the panel of their hosting provider), the ability to share direct links to screens. Consider the "Sites and Domains" tab
Sites & Domains Tab
- This section shows the username of the logged in user and the currently selected subscription. The user can change the properties of his account and choose which subscription to manage.
- This contains the Help menu, which opens the contextual online manual and allows you to watch video tutorials.
- Search.
- This section contains a navigation bar that helps organize the Plesk interface. Tools are grouped by functionality, for example, tools for managing web hosting settings are found on the Websites and Domains page, and tools for managing mail accounts are found on the Mail page. Here is a brief description of all tabs and the functionality provided:
- Websites and domains. The tools presented here allow customers to add and remove domains, subdomains, and domain aliases. They also allow you to manage various web hosting settings, create and manage databases and their users, change DNS settings, and secure sites with SSL/TLS certificates.
- Mail. The tools presented here allow clients to add and remove mail accounts, as well as manage mail server settings.
- Applications. The tools presented here allow customers to easily install and manage many different web applications.
- Files. Presented here is a web-based file manager that allows customers to upload content to sites as well as manage files that already exist on the server in their subscription.
- Database. Here clients can create new and manage existing databases.
- File sharing. This is a file sharing service that allows customers to store personal files as well as share them with other Plesk users.
- Statistics. Here is information about the consumption of disk space and traffic, as well as a link to the statistics of visits, showing detailed information about site visitors.
- Server. This information is only visible to the server administrator. Here are the tools that allow the administrator to set global server settings.
- Extensions. Here, customers can manage the extensions installed in Plesk and use the functionality of those extensions.
- Users. The tools presented here allow customers to add and remove user accounts.
- My profile. This information is only visible in Power User mode. Here you can view and update contact details and other personal information.
- Account. This information is only visible in the Virtual Hosting Client Panel. It provides information about the use of subscription resources, hosting options provided and rights. Through these tools, customers can retrieve and update their contact details and other personal information, as well as back up their subscription settings and websites.
- dockers. This element is visible if the Docker Manager extension is installed. Here you can run and manage containers based on Docker images.
- This section contains all the controls related to the currently open tab. The screenshot has the Sites & Domains tab open, showing various tools for managing aspects of the subscription that are related to web hosting.
- This section contains various controls and information collected for the convenience of the user.
To perform many daily tasks, in most cases you will need to open one of the tabs and click on the controls presented there. If the panel doesn't have the tab or tool you want, it's most likely disabled for that subscription. A detailed overview of the navigation bar elements on the left side of the screen is . In the new version of Plesk Obsidian, the interface will feature an attractive new UX design that makes website management even easier and is fully in line with how web professionals create, secure and run servers and applications that scale in the cloud.
Plesk obsidian
Server administration on Linux
Administrators can use several additional tools included with the standard Plesk distribution to add custom automation tasks, backup and restore data, and restore Plesk components and system settings. The tools include several standalone applications, command line utilities, and the ability to integrate custom scripts with Plesk. To easily perform server management tasks, there is , which contains the following sections:
- Introduction to Plesk. Describes the main components and services managed by Plesk, licensing terms, and how to install and upgrade Plesk components.
- Virtual host configuration. Describes the concepts of virtual hosts and their implementation in Plesk. Contains instructions on why and how to change their configuration.
- Service management. Provides descriptions of a number of external services used on the Plesk server and instructions for setting up and using them.
- System maintenance. Describes how to change the server hostname, IP addresses, and directory locations for storing virtual host files, backups, and mail content. This chapter also covers the Plesk command line tools, the scripting engine for Plesk events, and the Service Monitor, which allows you to monitor and restart services without logging into Plesk.
- Backup, recovery and data migration. Describes how to back up and restore Plesk data using the pleskbackup and pleskrestore command-line utilities, and introduces tools for migrating hosted data between servers.
- Statistics and Logs. Describes how to perform on-demand statistics on disk space and traffic usage, and how to access web server logs.
- Productivity increase. Provides information on how to improve Plesk using the software.
- Increased security. Provides instructions on how to protect your Plesk server and sites hosted on it from unauthorized access.
- Customizing the appearance and elements of the Plesk GUI. Introduces Plesk themes that can be used to customize the appearance and branding of Plesk, and describes how to remove certain elements of the Plesk GUI or change their behavior.
- Localization. Introduces methods for localizing the Plesk GUI into languages ββfor which Plesk does not provide localization.
- Trouble-shooting. Describes how to troubleshoot Plesk services.
Extensions
Additional tools, features and services can be obtained through the abundance of extensions provided in conveniently divided into categories.
Plesk Extension Library
Here are some of the most popular and actively developing:
- is a single point of control for WordPress for server administrators, resellers and customers. There is a "Smart Updates" feature that analyzes WordPress updates with artificial intelligence to determine if installing an update might break something.
WordPress Toolkit Application
- - SEO tools.
- β a complete set of tools for Power Joomla!
- - automatic backup.
- - website builder.
- β formation of client packages from hosting companies.
- - protects websites from online threats (hacking, spamming, botnets, DDoS attacks) and speeds up their loading.
You can reduce the response time of sites and the load on the server using caching. The function can be activated via the panel interface.
Nginx
Conclusion
As you can see, for web administrators, Plesk is designed to make managing websites, domains, mailboxes, and databases simple and enjoyable. We hope that this review will help those of our customers who purchase a virtual server in RUVDS to get their bearings in Plesk. Until the end of the year, the license for the panel goes free to .
Source: habr.com