1. Installing Plesk
2. Upgrading Plesk
2.1. Upgrading Plesk from the Control Panel
2.2. Upgrading Plesk through the Auto-installer Console Utility
3. Plesk Self-Extracting Install Procedure
4. What's new in Plesk v8.0.0
4.1. build80060502.16
4.1.1. Changelog
4.2. build80060331.13
4.2.1. Changelog
4.2.2. Detailed description
4.2.3. Known Problems
5. Contact Information
Prior to installing or upgrading Plesk, be sure to backup your server.
Refer to the Plesk Installation Guide available at http://download1.swsoft.com/Plesk/Plesk8.0/Doc/Plesk-8.0.0r-installation-guide.pdf
to obtain instructions on installing and upgrading Plesk.
Other documentation on Plesk 8.0 is available at http://www.swsoft.com/en/products/plesk80/docs/
Plesk 8.0 FAQ is available at http://faq.swsoft.com
Important:
1. Before installing Plesk 8, switch SElinux off by running command 'setenforce 0' in shell. After you have installed Plesk, switch SWlinux on by running command 'setenforce 1'.
2.Before installing Plesk on a Virtuozzo-created VPS by means of a Plesk autoinstaller, install mod_ssl compatible with the Apache server version installed on your machine.
3. Before installing Plesk on Debian 3.1 - Sarge, remove the libboost-filesystem1.33.1 package. Plesk will not install if libboost-filesystem1.33.1 is included with other packages.
4. Before installing Plesk, make sure that gtar is installed. With FreeBSD versions of Plesk the gtar application must be used instead of tar.
To install Plesk software on a server,
1. Download the Auto-installer utility that suits your operating system from http://www.swsoft.com/en/download/plesk80/ and
save it on your server's hard drive.
2. Change your working directory to the directory where the Auto-installer utility resides, for instance # cd /root/plesk
3. Set the execution permission for Auto-installer:
# chmod +x plesk_auto_installer_file_name
4. Run the Auto-installer:
# ./plesk_auto_installer_file_name
5. Follow the instructions presented on the screen to complete the installation.
6. When the installation is finished, Plesk will start automatically. Now, to complete the initial configuration, log in to the Plesk control panel running on your host at https://machine.domain.name:8443/ or https://IP-address:8443/. Use the username "admin" and password "setup" (both are case sensitive). For security reasons, be sure to change the password upon initial login.
Note: If you plan to use mailing lists provided by the Mailman software, you should install the mailman package by means of Plesk Auto-installer and install support for Mailman mailing lists.
Notes on upgrading:
After upgrading to Plesk 8.0.0, all custom (third-party) skins become unregistered. If you wish to restore the custom skins that you used before the upgrade, run the command "$PRODUCT_ROOT_D/tmp/restore-custom-skins.sh", where $PRODUCT_ROOT_D is your Plesk installation directory (for example, /usr/local/psa.) You can remove this file after restoring your skins.
To update or upgrade your Plesk software from the control panel
Note: If you want to update/upgrade from a locally stored Plesk distribution or Plesk update server mirror inside your network, click Preferences, select the "Network storage" source type, specify the URL and click OK.
To update or upgrade your Plesk software by means of the Auto-installer utility
Note: When upgrading Plesk from 7.5.x to 8.0.0 using Auto-installer, be sure to upgrade the Tomcat component, otherwise, Java applications will not be supported on your server.
Prior to installing Plesk, be sure to have the following packages installed on the server: perl 5.8.7 (for FreeBSD 5.3 and 5.4 versions) and gtar. For FreeBSD 4.11, perl 5.8.5 is required.
cd /home/admin/plesk
sh psa_v8.0.0_build80060331.13_os_MacOS_10.4w_powerpc.sh
if you want to upgrade it. To upgrade a previous Plesk version, refer to the upgrade instructions below.
5. The script will display a series of messages showing the installation progress. During
this stage all Plesk components will be installed and properly configured on the server.
Depending on the speed of the server, there may be times when the installation seems to be stuck.
The entire install procedure should take only a few minutes.
Do not attempt to cancel the install script. The installation logs all of the changes
made to the system in the /tmp/ directory. The install script will backup
any system configuration files before making the changes.
When the installation is finished, Plesk will start automatically.
In order to complete the Plesk initial configuration, you need to log in to Plesk
on your host at https://machine.domain.name:8443/ or https://IP-Address:8443/
The default username is "admin" and the default password is "setup", both are case sensitive.
For security reasons, this password should be changed upon initial login.
NOTES:
Plesk enables PHP safe_mode during installation (the directive 'safe_mode-On'
in php.ini). However, you can disable the safe_mode for individual domains if required.
To do this, you should use the vhost.conf (vhost_ssl.conf) features.
See http://download1.swsoft.com/Plesk/Plesk8.0/Doc/plesk-8.0r-admins-guide-html/apas02.html
for details.
In order to use multiple interface languages in the Webmail application, you may need to run the 'dpkg-reconfigure locales' command and choose the locales to install.
Plesk cannot enable user quotas on XFS partition during installation
because such operation requires remount of XFS partition. In order to enable
hard disk quotas on XFS partition you should manually remount it with usrquota
option (additional information can be found on 'quotaon' man page).
For managing the SiteBuilder system through Plesk, the 'remote_admin' user account with administrator's privileges is created in the SiteBuilder. To ensure the proper work of the SiteBuilder Remote Administration module, you should not remove or block this user account.
however, if you do not use the SiteBuilder Remote Administration Module, you can remove this user account.
To make operating the SiteBuilder API (remote_admin) more secure, the
/usr/local/sitebuilder/remote_admin directory is password protected, and the following default user name and password are stored in the .htpasswd file: radmin/sbradmin. For security reasons you must change the default password. To do this, run the command 'htpasswd /usr/local/sitebuilder/remote_admin/.htpasswd radmin', and then enter the new password and confirm it.
1. [-] The bug that prevented qmail from delivering to local aliases is resolved.
2. [*] Hostname checking is not performed on Virtuozzo.
3. [-] Several bugs in Mailman configuration resolved.
4. [-] Several bugs that caused incorrect operation of network interfaces on SuSe were resolved.
5. [*] API, Backup, Migration updates.
1. [+] Plesk News
2. [+] Desktop interface
3. [+] Interface customization on per-client basis. Templates.
4. [+] Initial configuration screen redesign
5. [+] Next generation of Backup Utilities on PMM engine
6. [*] MySQL 4.1 and localization
7. [*] PostgreSQL 7.3 and higher
8. [+] Autoinstaller 3.0
9. [+] Watchdog 2
10. [+] Domain Aliases
11. [+] Qmail queue management interface
12. [+] Remote databases (Centralized Databases)
13. [+] [PMM] Multisession migration
14. [+] [PMM] Site applications and Application Vaults migration
15. [+] [PMM] PostgreSQL databases migration
16. [+] Using PAM for Authentication
17. [*] mod_jk instead of mod_webapp
18. [+] APOP support
19. [+] SPF support for Qmail
20. [*] Dr.Web 4.33 upgrade issue
21. [+] SpamAssassin 3 for FreeBSD
22. [*] PHP 4.4.2 upgrade for FreeBSD
23. [+] DB WebAdmin administrative login
24. [+] Retrieve password feature for administrator
25. [+] Protected directories improvement
26. [+] CSR wildcard certificate support
27. [+] SSL support for subdomains
28. [+] Hostname validation upon Plesk setup
29. [+] Acronis True Image Module
30. [+] [PMM] IP Mapping correction
31. [+] [API] MD5 authentication in XMLRPC
32. [+] [API] Support for SpamAssassin and Dr.Web
33. [*] Chroot shell supporting improvement
34. [+] SOA records management
35. [*] DNS Zone internal presentation redesign
36. [*] CLI interface utilities reorganization
37. [*] Mambo CMS and reorganization
Information about new features - When you log in to Plesk 8 for the first time, an information box appears at the top of the screen. It contains brief information about the new features and improvements that have been added since the last version of Plesk, as well as links to more information about the features and direct links to screens where the the features can be used. Each user sees only those features that he or she can use.
Brand-new desktop interface option - Plesk 8 boasts quick and efficient task-oriented desktop, while retaining the ability to use old, traditional interface, and offering the options of switching between old and new interfaces, and even using both at the same time. Now administrators have quick access to major management functions and they have immediate access to mission critical information and statistics. The task-oriented design also allows administrators to create "favorites" and "shortcuts".
Interface Control Management - This feature introduced in Plesk 7.5.3 enables Plesk administrators to easily and efficiently manage the visibility of the control panel buttons. Plesk administrators have the flexibility to maintain a simpler, cleaner interface for end-users by hiding the controls for features that are not installed from Plesk users. Plesk 8 introduces the concept of client interface templates, which eliminates the need to adjust interface settings on a per-client basis. This can considerably speed up your client interface management.
Initial configuration improvement - Plesk 8 allows you to configure default IP addresses at the first startup, making the process of initial Plesk configuration quicker and easier.
New generation of Backup Utilities - The improved backup/restore utilities based on Plesk Migration Manager engine let
administrators backup and restore client accounts, selecting which client's domains to backup/restore and whether the client's information should be backed up/restored. The improved domain restoration brings now a domain to the very state the domain had during the backup. Backup files are no more digitally signed, which lets domain administrators to migrate their domains from server to server by themselves. This generation of Backup Utilities also allows to backup/restore Site Applications and Application Vaults.
MySQL 4.1 support - This release adds full MySQL 4.1 support, eliminating all possible problems with local characters in MySQL databases.
Support of PostgreSQL 7.3 and higher - Plesk 8 supports now all versions of PostgreSQL starting from v. 7.3.
Autoinstaller V3.0 - This improved feature lets administrators deploy and upgrade multiple servers in an efficient, cost effective manner. The new architecture allows for improved dependencies tracking and increased speed during installation and upgrade. All of this makes the support of new OSes simpler and easier.
Watchdog 2.0 - The second generation of Watchdog utilities, Watchdog 2 tremendously improves its predecessor capabilities.
In addition to previously available features Watchdog 2 now monitors your hard disks, scans your server for security vulnerabilities such as rootkits, backdoors and local exploits, and displays CPU and RAM usage statistics.
Domain Aliases support - This new feature lets domain administrators set up alternative domain names which act as nicknames for websites and e-mail addresses, and modify their DNS records.
Qmail Queue Management through Control Panel - This feature allows administrators to manage the Qmail message queue directly through Plesk Control Panel. With this feature, you can manually delete spam and other unwanted mail from the queue, using quick and intuitive sorting options.
Multiple Remote Databases support - Plesk 8 allows you to use remote database servers for storing client databases. Moreover, you can easily employ and manage multiple external MySQL and PostgreSQL database servers at once!
Simultaneous migration support - Plesk Migration Manager now allows simultaneous (a.k.a. multisession) migrations. This new feature is a definite time-saver, especially for Expand migrations. Simultaneous migration is easy and convenient way to migrate data from several servers at once.
Site Applications and Application Vaults migration - the ability to migrate SiteApps and Application Vault is a great new functionality for Plesk Migration Manager. This feature is another big step towards perfect migration brought to you by Plesk team.
PostgreSQL databases migration - Plesk Migration Manager now can migrate PostgreSQL databases from one Plesk server to another, further increasing the functionality and flexibility of migration.
Pluggable Authentication Modules authentication support - In this release the support for Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM) authentication was added. PAM authentication is flexible mechanism for authenticating system users, further improving Plesk server security.
Using mod_jk module instead of mod_webapp module - Plesk 8 now uses mod_jk module instead of outdated mod_webapp module for its Java-related needs.
APOP authentication support - In this release encrypted APOP authentication for POP3 protocol is added. Your mailbox passwords will never be transmitted in plain text again - APOP is using MD5 hash, providing quality encryption and secure authentication of transmitted e-mail credentials.
Sender Policy Framework (SPF) support - Plesk 8 adds the support of popular and very effective SPF (Sender Policy Framework) spam prevention system. SPF is based on using special DNS records that specify which machines are authorized to transmit e-mail for a specific domain, thus making it easy to distinguish genuine e-mails from those forged by spammers. For more information about Sender Policy Framework system, refer to http://spf.pobox.com/howworks.html.
Dr.Web 4.33 updated - Dr.Web anti-virus is upgraded to new 4.33 version in Plesk 8. Additionally, brand-new Plesk Autoinstaller V3 can successfully update all Dr.Web components, thus making previous Dr.Web autoupgrade problems obsolete.
SpamAssassin 3 upgrade for FreeBSD - FreeBSD versions of Plesk 8 come with SpamAssassin 3 included. This new SpamAssassin version further improves the quality of spam filtering, while fine-tuning SpamAssassin's already outstanding performance.
PHP 4.4.2 upgrade for FreeBSD - FreeBSD versions of Plesk 8 come with PHP upgraded to 4.4.2 version. PHP 4.2.2 offers increased performance and security among other improvements.
Improved databases administration - This release offers extended database administration capabilities and improved PhpMyAdmin and PhpPgAdmin integration. Plesk server administrators now have the full-fledged database administration ability via PhpMyAdmin and PhpPgAdmin, being able to create database users, manage their access rights and remove users, if necessary. Improved database administration capabilities now allow you to choose the default user for DB WebAdmin feature.
Secure administrator password retrieval - This new feature allows Plesk server administrator to retrieve and change the administrator's password without logging in to Plesk and without compromising the Plesk server security.
Protection of cgi-bin directory - Due to numerous requests, Plesk 8 adds the ability to protect your cgi-bin directory, securing the access to it. You can also create protected directories in cgi-bin directory, increasing the flexibility of your secure content structure. This means that you can now restrict access to your dynamic web pages that use CGI scripts.
Wildcard SSL certificate support - By popular demand, in this release you can use SSL certificates with wildcards as domain names (a.k.a. wildcard SSL certificates). This feature also supports the creation of self-signed wildcard SSL certificates and generation of Certificate Signing Requests (CSRs) for wildcard SSL certificates.
SSL support for subdomains - This feature provides SSL support for subdomains, enabling you to create and use subdomains that use Secure Sockets Layer protocol for authentication and security.
Host name validation during install - Plesk 8 now validates the host name during the installation process, checking the compliance of host name with IP address. This eliminates several possible problems during the installation, improving Apache and MySQL operation consistency.
New and improved Acronis True Image Module - Plesk (except for the FreeBSD and MacOS versions) now comes with a new ATIS module. Using this module, administrators can create server disk backup images without interrupting server operations and perform easy and fast recovery of the entire system. The module enables scheduling backup tasks, launching manually backup tasks, selecting the compression level for backup images, setting up passwords to protect backup images, and other useful features.
Simplified IP mapping during migration - Simplification of IP mapping in Plesk Migration Manager makes migration even quicker and easier than it was before. All excessive IP mapping is removed, as you only need to map those IPs that are actually used by migration objects.
MD5 authentication in XML RPC - Plesk 8 gives you the option to use MD5 authentication in Plesk XML RPC. This vastly improves Plesk Control Panel security when using Plesk API, enabling you to encrypt the passwords and protect Plesk from potential hacker attacks.
Improved SpamAssassin and Dr.Web API management - With Plesk 8 you can manage SpamAssassin and Dr.Web through Plesk API much more effectively than before, utilizing a wide range of commands and options previously unavailable for API management.
Improved support of Chroot Shell Environment - Plesk 8 vastly improves disk space usage for Chroot shell environment in vhost. Now disk space usage for chroot shell environment in vhost is minimized, saving your precious free HDD space.
DNS SOA records management - In this version you can manage DNS Start of Authority (SOA) records through Plesk Control Panel. With added support for DNS SOA records management, Plesk offers you more DNS fine-tuning options than ever before.
Improved usability of DNS records management - Plesk 8 drastically improves the security and usability of DNS records management, employing dynamic DNS records generation forms. With new simplified DNS management interface and dynamic forms the possibility of making a mistake when managing your DNS records is close to none.
CLI interface utilities update - Beginning with Plesk 8, CLI interface utilities do not use .sh name suffix anymore. We recommend all Plesk 8 users to use the new, more convenient syntax. While the old syntax will be supported for a while, it is outdated and its support will eventually cease.
Mambo CMS and osCommerce applications have been moved to Application Vault.
If you wish to install package using PHP CLI v.5, create the following link: "/usr/bin/php -> /usr/bin/php5".
Note: Old syntax is still supported, but the compatibilty wrappers will be removed in the next major release.
"# To disable tunneled clear text passwords, change to no here!
PasswordAuthentication no
#PermitEmptyPasswords no".
Legend:
[+] new feature
[-] bug fixed or removed
[*] bug fixed and improvement made
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Phone: +1.703.815.5670,
Fax: +1.703.815.5675
World Wide Web: http://www.swsoft.com
E-mail:
For billing information, email accounting@swsoft.com
For purchasing or partnering information, email sales@swsoft.com
For technical support, use our Online Support Form.
To report problems with Plesk software, email bugreport@swsoft.com
For information on career opportunities with SWsoft, email careers@swsoft.com
For press contact information, email press@swsoft.com
For information about becoming a Partner, email partners@swsoft.com
For information on translating Plesk into your language, email i18n@swsoft.com
For general product information, email info@swsoft.com
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