Parallels Plesk Expand 2.3 Installation guide

Parallels

®

Plesk Expand

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Contents

Preface 4

About This Guide ........................................................................................................................... 4

Who Should Read This Guide ....................................................................................................... 4

Organization of This Guide ............................................................................................................ 5

Typographical Conventions ........................................................................................................... 5

Feedback ....................................................................................................................................... 6

Overview 7

About Plesk Expand ...................................................................................................................... 8

Preparing for Installation of Plesk Expand .................................................................................. 10

Plesk Expand Requirements ............................................................................................. 11

Installing Plesk ............................................................................................................................. 16

Installing PSA API RPC .................................................................................................... 17

Installing Plesk Expand 19

Automatic Installation .................................................................................................................. 19

Web-Based Installation ..................................................................................................... 20

Console-Based Installation ............................................................................................... 22

Manual Installation....................................................................................................................... 28

Preparing for Manual Installation ...................................................................................... 29

Installation Procedure ....................................................................................................... 30

Installing Additional Software ...................................................................................................... 31

Installing Centralized Mail Server...................................................................................... 32

Installing Centralized DNS Server..................................................................................... 33

Installing Centralized Database Server ............................................................................. 36

Configuring Plesk Expand to Run Behind a Firewall ........................................................ 37

Upgrading Plesk Expand 39

Automatic Upgrade ...................................................................................................................... 39

Web-Based Upgrade ......................................................................................................... 40

Console-Based Upgrade ................................................................................................... 42

Manual Upgrade .......................................................................................................................... 49

Preparing for Manual Upgrade .......................................................................................... 49

Upgrade Procedure ........................................................................................................... 50

Deinstalling Plesk Expand 51

Automatic Deinstallation .............................................................................................................. 51

Web-Based Deinstallation ................................................................................................. 52

Console-Based Deinstallation ........................................................................................... 53

Manual Deinstallation .................................................................................................................. 56

Preparing for Manual Deinstallation .................................................................................. 56

Deinstallation Procedure ................................................................................................... 56

4 Preface

In this section:

About This Guide ............................................................................................... 4

Who Should Read This Guide ........................................................................... 4

Organization of This Guide ................................................................................ 5

Typographical Conventions ............................................................................... 5

Feedback .......................................................................................................... 6

About This Guide

The purpose of this guide is to provide full and comprehensive information on preliminary

steps you should take before you can start installing, upgrading Plesk Expand on your server

or deinstalling it, on two types of Plesk Expand installation, upgrade and deinstallation, and

on the process of the installation, upgrade and deinstallation itself.

Who Should Read This Guide

This guide is intended for hosting service providers or those who purchased Plesk Expand

and wishes to install this product on a server. Basic skills in usage of Linux operating

systems supported by Plesk Expand is required, these are shell usage, understanding of the

RPM system, etc.

Preface

Preface 5

Organization of This Guide

Chapter 2, Overview, familiarizes you with Plesk Expand. It outlines the basic Plesk Expand

concept of centralized management and provides information on preliminary steps you

should take before you can start installing Plesk Expand.

Chapter 3, Installing Plesk Expand, tells you about the two types of the installation - automatic

and manual - and provides detailed information on how to install Plesk Expand with the help

of each of these two types.

Chapter 4, Upgrading Plesk Expand, provides instructions on how to upgrade Plesk Expand using

either of the two possible ways - automatic upgrade or manual upgrade.

Chapter 5, Deinstalling Plesk Expand, teaches you how to deinstall Plesk Expand from your

server either automatically or manually.

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.

Formatting convention

Type of Information

Example

Special Bold

Items you must select,

such as menu options,

command buttons, or

items in a list.

Go to the System tab.

Titles of chapters,

sections, and subsections.

Read the Basic Administration

chapter.

Italics

Used to emphasize the

importance of a point, to

introduce a term or to

designate a command line

placeholder, which is to be

replaced with a real name

or value.

The system supports the so

called wildcard character search.

Monospace

The names of commands,

files, and directories.

The license file is located in the

http://docs/common/licen

ses directory.

6 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.

This chapter outlines the basic Plesk Expand functionality and provides information on

preliminary steps you should take before you can start installing Plesk Expand.

In this chapter:

About Plesk Expand .......................................................................................... 8

Preparing for Installation of Plesk Expand ......................................................... 10

Installing Plesk .................................................................................................. 16

C H A P T E R 1

Overview

8 Overview

About Plesk Expand

The main thing about Plesk Expand is that it is intended to extend Plesk™ functionality

and is considered to be an add-on application for Plesk™. Plesk Expand cannot be

used separately, it requires at least two Plesk servers to operate.

Below, we provide short descriptions of Plesk™ and Plesk Expand.

Plesk™ is a control panel designed to automate all aspects of your hosting business

and deliver superior flexibility and stability to your customers. It enables users to create

and remotely manage hundreds of virtual hosts through an easy-to-use, intuitive

interface, without in-depth technical knowledge of web hosting technologies. The

extensive set of Plesk features allows you to completely automate product installation,

enrich self-administration capabilities for your clients, and minimize the number of

support calls.

Plesk Expand is the hosting automation software that unites multiple Plesk servers on

a single hosting platform. It allows hosting service providers to administer several Plesk

servers from one centralized point: the Plesk Expand control panel. Using Plesk

Expand, the administrator can centrally manage all Plesk client accounts, domains and

other objects registered on different Plesk servers, without having to log in to these

servers. Plesk Expand offers centralized administration of major client services - such

as e-mail, DNS and database management - across all Plesk Expand servers, thus

allowing to effectively balance the workload. Specialized user roles - such as the Plesk

Expand reseller and Plesk Expand client - allow the administrator to configure and sell

a number of advanced web hosting reseller packages. Plesk Expand can be easily

integrated with the provider‟s infrastructure through special APIs (Application

Programming Interfaces).

The principle of the Plesk Expand operation is presented in the schema below:

Overview 9

Plesk Expand User roles and basic object types are described further.

Plesk Expand objects

Plesk Expand objects are Plesk servers and accounts registered on Plesk servers,

which are managed by Plesk Expand users.

There are the following kinds of objects in Plesk Expand:

 Plesk Server. A hosting server running Plesk

TM

control panel software (either Plesk

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

 Plesk Server Group. Several Plesk servers to which common rules or features are

assigned by Administrator, or which are assigned to one Reseller.

 Plesk client is a Plesk client account residing on one of Plesk servers registered in

Plesk Expand. You can grant Plesk clients access to Plesk control panel, where he

can manage his or her account and domains.

10 Overview

 Domain is a virtual host on the Internet owned by a Plesk client, Expand Reseller or

Expand client. For each domain, you can create a Domain Administrator account

allowing to manage the domain in the Plesk control panel.

Plesk Expand users

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

own. Plesk Expand users have access to the Plesk Expand control panel, where they

can manage their objects and accounts, within the limits and capabilities provided by

their user role. There are the following user roles in Plesk Expand:

 Administrator. A Plesk Expand user who has full rights to configure Plesk Expand

and manage all its objects and user accounts.

 Expand Reseller is a Plesk Expand user who owns and manages Plesk servers,

groups of Plesk servers, Plesk client accounts and domains. Reseller has

Administrator rights on all objects registered on Plesk servers which he or she

owns.

 Expand Client is a Plesk Expand user who owns and manages domains and Plesk

clients in Plesk Expand. These domains and Plesk clients may be registered on

several Plesk servers, including servers running different platforms (Plesk for

Windows or Plesk for Linux/Unix).

Plesk Expand Centralized servers

Plesk Expand offers a set of distributed (or centralized) services. A distributed service

is a service received by several Plesk servers remotely, from a single centralized

dedicated server. Such a server (called a Centralized server) is allocated for providing

this service to several or all objects registered on other Plesk servers. This allows to

reduce the workload on each Plesk server, optimize the overall system performance,

and helps to quickly and easily detect and resolve typical service issues. There are the

following types of centralized servers in Plesk Expand:

 Mail server. A Plesk server registered in Plesk Expand which operates as a

centralized mail server for several Plesk servers.

 DNS server. A Plesk or a non-Plesk server which operates as a centralized DNS

server for several Plesk servers.

 Database Server. A Plesk or a non-Plesk server which operates as a centralized

database server for several Plesk servers.

Communication between Plesk Expand and Plesk servers

The communication between Plesk and Plesk Expand is provided by PSA API RPC,

the data and command communication software. PSA API RPC should be installed on

every Plesk/Linux server prior to registering it in Plesk Expand. On and Plesk/FreeBSD

and Plesk for Windows servers there is no need to install PSA API RPC; it is included

in the distribution package.

Preparing for Installation of Plesk Expand

Before starting the installation or upgrade process, it is strongly recommended that you

 create a full system backup of the entire server.

Overview 11

 make sure that your server meets all Plesk Expand requirements (see page 11).

 make sure you have at least 2 Plesk servers with all required software installed on

them. If you do not have servers with Plesk installed, refer to Installing Plesk (on

page 16) for installation instructions.

Note: Even if you already have Plesk servers installed, do NOT skip this step anyway.

Please pay special attention to the software that must be installed on the servers so

they could properly communicate with Plesk Expand.

In this section:

Plesk Expand Requirements ............................................................................. 11

Plesk Expand Requirements

The following Plesk Expand requirements should be taken into consideration:

 Hardware Requirements (see page 12);

 Software Requirements (see page 12);

 Manageable Plesk Server Platforms (see page 13);

 Mail Client Requirements (see page 14);

 Browser Access Requirements (see page 14);

 Requirements for Installing Plesk Expand on Virtuozzo (see page 15).

Note: Requirements differ for different versions of Plesk Expand. See the Release

Notes for a particular version of Plesk Expand for the most up-to-date list of

requirements for this version. Release notes can be found at the Parallels web site at

http://www.parallels.com/en/download/expand/.

In this section:

Hardware Requirements ................................................................................... 12

Software Requirements ..................................................................................... 12

Manageable Plesk Server Platforms ................................................................. 13

Mail Client Requirements .................................................................................. 14

Browser Access Requirements ......................................................................... 14

Requirements For Installing on Virtuozzo .......................................................... 15

12 Overview

Hardware Requirements

Plesk Expand installation requires an IBM PC-compatible computer with the following

hardware configuration:

 i586-compatible CPU (Intel Celeron, Pentium II, Pentium III, Pentium 4, or AMD

Athlon);

 At least 1 GB of RAM;

 Hard drive(s) with at least 1 GB of free disk space;

 A network card.

Software Requirements

The following software should be installed prior to Plesk Expand installation:

In this section:

Plesk Expand Installation OS Requirements (With or Without Plesk) ................ 13

Supported Plesk Versions ................................................................................. 13

Overview 13

Plesk Expand Installation OS Requirements (With or Without Plesk)

Plesk Expand can be installed on:

 a clean server (standalone installation)

 a Plesk 8.x for Linux/Unix server (over-Plesk installation)

In both cases, Plesk Expand can be installed on the following operation systems:

 Server configuration of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3;

 Server configuration of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 (32 and 64 bit);

 Server configuration of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (32 and 64 bit);

 Server configuration of Fedora Core 4;

 Server configuration of Fedora Core 5 (32 and 64 bit);

 Server configuration of Fedora Core 6 (32 and 64 bit);

 Server configuration of Fedora 7 (32 and 64 bit);

 Server configuration of Fedora 8 (32 and 64 bit);

 Server configuration of CentOS 3.x;

 Server configuration of CentOS 4.x (32 and 64 bit);

 Server configuration of CentOS 5.x (32 and 64 bit);

 Server configuration of Debian GNU Linux 3.1;

 Server configuration of Debian GNU Linux 4.0 (32 and 64 bit);

 SuSE Linux 9.3;

 openSuSE 10.3 (32 and 64 bit);

 SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 (32 and 64 bit).

Supported Plesk Versions

 Plesk 8.1 - 8.6 for Linux/Unix;

 Plesk 8.1 - 8.6 for Windows.

Manageable Plesk Server Platforms

Plesk Expand allows to manage Plesk servers running all platforms available for each

of the supported Plesk versions:

 Plesk 8.1 - 8.6 for Linux/Unix;

 Plesk 8.1 - 8.6 for Windows.

14 Overview

Mail Client Requirements

The following Mail Clients can be used with Plesk Expand:

 Eudora v5.1 for Windows;

 Microsoft Outlook Express v6.0 for Windows;

 Microsoft Outlook 2000+ for Windows;

 Netscape 6.2 for Windows/Unix;

 Mozilla 1.0 and above.

Browser Access Requirements

The following browser access requirements should be taken into consideration:

 Internet Explorer 7.0;

 Internet Explorer 6.0;

 Mozilla 1.7+;

 Firefox 2.0+;

 Firefox 1.0+; .

Overview 15

Requirements For Installing on Virtuozzo

The product works being installed into a Virtuozzo VE under management of

 Virtuozzo for Linux 3.0

 Virtuozzo for Linux 3.0 SP1

 Virtuozzo for Linux 4.0

As the product is delivered only under Linux platforms, the corresponding platforms for

Virtuozzo should be concerned.

The product works with any terminal software (Plesk server , central DB server, central

mail server, central DNS server) running in a Virtuozzo VE.

When installing Plesk Expand on Virtuozzo, it‟s recommended to use the following VE

configuration:

 EL3 - EL5/FC3 - FC8/CO3 - CO5-based VE

 DISKSPACE=”1048576:1153434”

 DISKINODES=”200000:220000”

 PRIVVMPAGES = “250000:250000”

You can use the unlimited template for the VE creation. Be sure that the VE has no

MySQL template installed.

Tip: We recommend disabling the „offline management‟ option for Plesk servers

running on a Virtuozzo VE. Otherwise, you may have problems using features like

„Login to Plesk server‟, „Centralized Mail‟, etc.

16 Overview

Installing Plesk

As it was mentioned above, you will need to install 1-3 Plesk boxes for using Plesk

Expand to your advantage.

Plesk Expand 2.3 supports the following Plesk versions:

 Plesk 8.1 - 8.6 for Linux/Unix;

 Plesk 8.1 - 8.6 for Windows.

For detailed instructions on how to install a Plesk server, refer to Plesk Installation

Guides for each of the supported versions: Plesk for Linux/Unix and Plesk for

Windows.

After the general Plesk server setup is complete and you see the Plesk congratulation

message, you will need to install the following software necessary for the

communication of this Plesk server with Plesk Expand:

 PSA API RPC (see page 17);

 Plesk License Key. Instructions for installation of the Plesk license key are provided

in Plesk Installation Guides for the corresponding Plesk versions.

In this section:

Installing PSA API RPC ..................................................................................... 17

Overview 17

Installing PSA API RPC

PSA API RPC is a base tool of the data and command communication between Plesk

and Plesk Expand. Plesk Expand cannot work with Plesk until PSA API RPC is

installed on it. PSA API RPC must be installed on every Plesk server prior to

registering it in Plesk Expand.

If you skip this step now, Plesk Expand will warn you about the absence of PSA API

RPC and will suggest that you complete this step of the installation.

Note: Plesk Expand 2.3 does not provide the autoinstallation/update of PSA API RPC.

 It is necessary to install PSA API RPC on every Plesk server running Linux, if you

wish to register this server in Plesk Expand.

 PSA API RPC is included in the base distribution of Plesk for FreeBSD and of Plesk

for Windows. For Plesk servers running these operation systems, there is no need

to install PSA API RPC manually.

In this section:

Installation/Upgrade Procedure ......................................................................... 18

Deinstallation Procedure ................................................................................... 18

18 Overview

Installation/Upgrade Procedure

Each version of Plesk goes with a certain version of PSA API RPC necessary for the

operation of this Plesk server with Plesk Expand. PSA API RPC can be found in the

opt/api directory of the Plesk distribution.

To install PSA API RPC, follow these steps:

1 Log in to your Plesk server via SSH.

2 Go to the directory you have uploaded the Plesk distribution to.

# cd rpm_FedoraCore_4/

3 Check that you have Plesk API RPC packages there:

# ls opt/api/

psa-agent-1.3.4-81061129.22.noarch.rpm

psa-api-rpc-8.1.0-fc4.build81061129.22.noarch.rpm

psa-api-rpc-doc-8.1.0-fc4.build81061129.22.noarch.rpm

psa-api-rpc-protocol-8.1.0-fc4.build81061129.22.noarch.rpm

Note: Plesk API RPC package versions may differ from those listed, as Parallels

constantly improves its products functionality.

4. Install Plesk API RPC (please note the line break in the line below):

# rpm -Uhv psa-agent-1.3.4-81061129.22.noarch.rpm

psa-api-rpc-8.1.0-fc4.build81061129.22.noarch.rpm

Note: All the commands above are samples and should be adopted to your situation

before being applied.

Deinstallation Procedure

To deinstall PSA API RPC, use the following command (within root account):

# rpm -e psa-api-rpc

This chapter will provide a detailed description on how to install Plesk Expand.

Plesk Expand can be installed automatically (see page 19) or manually (see page 28)

on

 a clean server;

 a Plesk server running a supported version of Plesk for Linux/Unix.

Note: Installation on a clean server and on a Plesk server differs in the RPM packages

used and in OS requirements.

Tip: We strongly recommend using autoinstallation (see page 19), for fast and clean

installations.

In this chapter:

Automatic Installation ........................................................................................ 19

Manual Installation ............................................................................................ 28

Installing Additional Software ............................................................................ 31

Automatic Installation

You can select one of the following methods for the automatic installation of Plesk

Expand:

 Use web-based installer (see page 20). This Installer allows you to install Plesk

Expand remotely, through a web browser.

 Use console-based interactive Auto Installer (see page 22). This Installer is

launched locally from the server you are going to install Plesk Expand on.

In this section:

Web-Based Installation ..................................................................................... 20

Console-Based Installation ................................................................................ 22

C H A P T E R 2

Installing Plesk Expand

20 Installing Plesk Expand

Web-Based Installation

The web-based installation is carried out with the help of Plesk Expand Web Installer.

Plesk Expand Web Installer is an installation wizard which guides you through the

installation process. To install Plesk Expand, follow the steps below:

1 Start Web Installer by running the URL https://expand-webinstall.parallels.com/wui/

in your web browser.

Figure 1: Start Installation Screen

2 On the Start Installation page, provide the following information:

 Enter the address and the root password of the server where you want to install

Plesk Expand;

 Select the default interface skin and language from the list.

3 Click Start to begin uploading Web Installer to the specified server.

4 On the Welcoming Page, click Next if you agree to the terms provided in the Welcoming

message.

After you click Next Web Installer checks if any versions of Plesk Expand are

already installed on the server you specified. If no Plesk Expand versions are

detected, you proceed to the next page of the wizard.

5 On the Selecting Software Source page, specify the source Plesk Expand should be

installed from:

 Local Media. A data storage device (e.g. a compact disc) available locally on the

machine where Plesk Expand will be installed.

 Plesk Expand Server. A network server where the Plesk Expand distribution is

stored.

 Other Network Site. Some other website where the Plesk Expand distribution is

stored.

On the same screen the location of the selected source is specified. You can

specify any desired location here.

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Parallels Plesk Expand 2.3 Installation guide

Parallels Plesk Expand 2.3 Installation guide

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