Parallels Advanced Administration Guide Plesk Panel 11.5 For Linux Ag En

User Manual: parallels Plesk Panel - 11.5 - Advanced Administration Guide for Linux Free User Guide for Parallels Plesk Software, Manual
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Parallels Panel

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th

Copyright © 1999-2013 Parallels IP Holdings GmbH. All rights reserved.
This product is protected by United States and international copyright laws. The product’s
underlying technology, patents, and trademarks are listed at http://www.parallels.com/trademarks.
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Contents
About This Guide

7

Introduction to Panel

8

Installation and Upgrade Overview ............................................................................................. 11
Ports Used by Panel .................................................................................................................... 12
Licensing ..................................................................................................................................... 13

Virtual Hosts Configuration

14

Virtual Hosts and Hosting Types ................................................................................................. 16
Virtual Host Configuration Files......................................................................................... 18
Changing Virtual Hosts Settings Using Configuration Templates ............................................... 20
Template Execution Context ............................................................................................. 22
Example: Changing Default Apache Ports ........................................................................ 24
Website Directory Structure ........................................................................................................ 25
Virtual Host Structure (Linux) ............................................................................................ 25
Predefining Values for Customizable PHP Parameters .............................................................. 28
Analyzing Access and Errors ...................................................................................................... 29

Services Management

30

DNS ............................................................................................................................................. 31
FTP .............................................................................................................................................. 33
Mail Service ................................................................................................................................. 37
Restoring Mail Configuration ............................................................................................. 38
Installing Custom SSL Certificates for Qmail or Courier-IMAP Mail Servers .................... 39
Outgoing Mail from Exclusive IP Addresses ..................................................................... 43
Mailing Lists Management System .............................................................................................. 44
Configuring a Mailing List to Which only Members Are Allowed to Post .......................... 46
Importing a List of E-mail Addresses into a Mailing List ................................................... 46
Database Server.......................................................................................................................... 46
Using MariaDB or Percona as the Default Database Server ............................................ 47
Website Applications ................................................................................................................... 50
Spam Protection .......................................................................................................................... 51
Configuring SpamAssassin ............................................................................................... 52
Training SpamAssassin to Work with All Mail Accounts on the Server ............................ 53
Fighting Spam on a Qmail Mail Server ............................................................................. 54
Antivirus Support ......................................................................................................................... 56
Parallels Premium Antivirus .............................................................................................. 57
Kaspersky Antivirus ........................................................................................................... 59

System Maintenance

60

Managing Panel Objects Through the Command Line ............................................................... 60
Executing Custom Scripts on Panel Events ................................................................................ 61
Changing IP Addresses ............................................................................................................... 61
Changing Paths to Services ........................................................................................................ 62
Restarting Panel .......................................................................................................................... 63
Managing Services from the Command Line and Viewing Service Logs ................................... 63

About This Guide

4

Moving the Panel GUI to a Separate IP Address ........................................................................ 74

Backing Up, Restoring, and Migrating Data

75

Backing Up Data.......................................................................................................................... 76
Backup Objects: Hierarchy and Volume ........................................................................... 77
Specifying Data for Backing Up ........................................................................................ 80
Defining Properties of Files That Compose the Backup ................................................... 86
Exporting Backup Files ..................................................................................................... 88
Defining How the Backup Process Is Performed .............................................................. 90
Backup Utility Commands and Options ............................................................................ 92
Restoring Data............................................................................................................................. 96
Defining Objects for Restoration ....................................................................................... 97
Defining How the Restore Process is Performed............................................................ 103
Conflict Resolution Rules and Policies ........................................................................... 104
Restoration Utility Commands and Options .................................................................... 126
Migrating and Transferring Data ................................................................................................ 127

Statistics and Logs

128

Calculating Statistics from Logs ................................................................................................ 130
Recalculating Statistics for Previous Months ............................................................................ 130
Log Rotation .............................................................................................................................. 132
Resource Usage Reports .......................................................................................................... 133

Enhancing Performance

134

Reducing Resources Consumption in VPS Environments........................................................ 134
Setting Up VPS Optimized Mode in Parallels Vitruozzo Containers............................... 135
Setting Up VPS-Optimized Mode in Non-Virtuozzo Environments ................................. 137
Apache Modules Switched Off in VPS-Optimized Mode ................................................ 137
Increasing the Number of Domains that Panel Can Manage .................................................... 139
Recompiling Apache with More File Descriptors on RedHat-like Systems .................... 140
Recompiling Apache with More File Descriptors on Debian Systems ............................ 142
Making Your Mail Spam Resistant ............................................................................................ 143
Optimizing the Task Manager Performance .............................................................................. 143

Customizing Panel Appearance and GUI Elements

145

Customizing Panel Appearance and Branding ......................................................................... 146
Hiding and Changing Panel GUI Elements ............................................................................... 147
Domain Registration and Management Services............................................................ 149
SSL Certificates Selling Services .................................................................................... 152
Link to Provider's Website ............................................................................................... 159
Google Services for Websites Buttons ........................................................................... 161
Products from Parallels Partners Button ......................................................................... 163
Presence Builder Buttons ................................................................................................ 165
Panel Upgrades .............................................................................................................. 167
Mail Service Controls ...................................................................................................... 168
Links for Purchasing Panel License and Add-On Keys .................................................. 172
Promos ............................................................................................................................ 175
Link to Online Support Service........................................................................................ 179
The Facebook Like Button .............................................................................................. 181
Product Rating Widget .................................................................................................... 183
RSS Feeds ...................................................................................................................... 184
Voting for New Features ................................................................................................. 187

About This Guide

Rebranding Presence Builder

5

190

Changing the Editor's Name...................................................................................................... 193
Changing the Product and Company Logos, Hyperlinks, and Copyright Notice ...................... 194
Changing the Link to the User's Guide ...................................................................................... 196
Changing the Links to the Getting Started Video ...................................................................... 198

Customizing the Functionality of Presence Builder

200

Prohibiting Users from Removing Their Sites ........................................................................... 202
Making Modules Unavailable in the Editor ................................................................................ 202
Making the Google Picasa Storage Unavailable for Use in Image Galleries ............................ 203
Making the Site Import Functionality Unavailable ..................................................................... 204
Adding Custom Banner Images ................................................................................................ 205
Adding Custom Design Templates ............................................................................................ 207
Adding the Support Button ........................................................................................................ 209
Adding the Link for Sending Feedback ..................................................................................... 210
Removing the Option to Add a Site Copy to Facebook............................................................. 211
Removing Sites from Hosting Accounts .................................................................................... 211

Customizing Website Topics in Presence Builder

212

Adding Custom Website Topics ................................................................................................ 213
Step 1: Creating a Site in Presence Builder .................................................................... 214
Step 2: Saving a Site to a Snapshot ............................................................................... 215
Step 3: Uploading the Snapshot and Preparing for Editing ............................................ 216
Step 4: Editing the Files That Compose the Site Topic .................................................. 218
Step 5: Registering the New Topic with Presence Builder ............................................. 220
Step 6: Checking the New Topic ..................................................................................... 220
Rearranging and Removing Topics and Categories ................................................................. 221

Enhancing Security

222

Restricting Script Execution in the /tmp Directory ..................................................................... 223
Configuring Site Isolation Settings ............................................................................................ 224
Protecting from Running Tasks on Behalf of root ..................................................................... 225

Localization

226

Registering Additional Services with Panel Notifications

227

Preparing a Service for Registration ......................................................................................... 229
Registering the Service ............................................................................................................. 230
Code Samples ........................................................................................................................... 231
Implementation of Plan_Item_Interface .......................................................................... 232
Registration of an Additional Service .............................................................................. 236

Troubleshooting

237

Cannot Access Panel ................................................................................................................ 238
Cannot Log In to Panel .............................................................................................................. 238
The Administrator's Password Has Been Forgotten ................................................................. 240
Panel in a Virtuozzo Container: Broken Layout ........................................................................ 240
EZ Templates Update Issues in Parallels Virtuozzo Containers ............................................... 242
Postfix Consumes Too Many Resources in a Container ........................................................... 242

About This Guide

6

Appendix A: Web Server Configuration Files

243

Appendix B: Configuration Templates Structure

245

Appendix C: Apache Configuration Variables

248

1. $VAR->server->..................................................................................................................... 249
2. $VAR->domain-> ................................................................................................................... 252
3. $VAR->subDomain-> ............................................................................................................ 257
4. $VAR->ipAddress-> .............................................................................................................. 258

About This Guide

7

About This Guide
Parallels Plesk Panel for Linux Advanced Administration Guide is a companion guide for the
Parallels Panel Administrator's Guide. It is intended for server administrators whose
responsibilities include maintaining hosting servers and troubleshooting server software
problems.
The guide provides step-by-step instructions for performing server management tasks that
require use of Panel functionality other than the GUI and GUI-only tasks that administrators
may need to perform only in rare and specific situations. Administrators can use several
additional tools that are supplied in the standard Parallels Plesk Panel distribution package to
add customized automation tasks, back up and restore data, and repair Panel components
and system settings. The tools include a number of standalone applications, command-line
utilities, and the ability to integrate custom scripting with Parallels Plesk Panel.
This guide contains the following chapters:


Introduction to Panel. Describes the main components and services operated by Panel,
licensing terms, and the ways to install and update Panel components.



Virtual Hosts Configuration. Describes virtual host concepts and their implementation in
Panel. Provides instructions on why and how to change their configuration.



Services Management. Contains descriptions of a number of external services used on
Panel server and instructions on how to configure and use them.



System Maintenance. Describes how to change the server host name, IP addresses, and
locations of directories for storing virtual host files, backups, and mail content. This
chapter also introduces Panel's command-line tools, a mechanism for running scripts on
Panel events, and the service monitor that allows monitoring and restarting of services
without logging in to Panel.



Backing Up, Restoring, and Migrating Data. Describes how to back up and restore Panel data
by means of the command-line utilities pleskbackup and pleskrestore, and
introduces the tools for migrating hosted data between servers.



Statistics and Logs. Describes how to run on demand statistics calculations on disk space
and traffic usage, and access web server logs.



Enhancing Performance. Provides information on how to improve Panel functioning by
means of software.



Enhancing Security. Provides instructions on how to protect the Panel server and sites
hosted on it from unauthorized access.



Customizing Panel Appearance and GUI Elements. Introduces Panel themes that can be used
to customize Panel appearance and branding and describes how to remove specific
elements of the Panel GUI or change their behavior.



Localization. Introduces the methods of localizing the Panel GUI into languages for which
Parallels does not provide localization.



Troubleshooting. Describes how to troubleshoot malfunctions of Panel services.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction to Panel
Parallels Plesk Panel files can be divided into six major groups responsible for different
aspects of Panel work. The diagram below shows these groups (components of Panel)
and the connections they have to each other and to external services that Panel
manages.

Introduction to Panel

9

Panel components are as follows:


Panel core. The core processes requests that Panel receives from the Panel GUI,
command line interface, and API RPC. The core contains scripts, binary files and
other resources used to link Panel components with each other and with external
services.



Panel database psa. The database stores information about Panel objects, such as
IP addresses, domains, user accounts, and so on.



sw-cp-server - a web server based on nginx. This serves requests to the Panel
GUI.

Panel GUI - a web interface provided with sw-cp-server. The GUI is the main means of
interaction with Panel.


Command line utilities. The command line interface allows integration of third-party
software with Panel objects. In addition, it is a way for administrators to manage
Panel through the server shell. For more information on the Panel command line
interface, refer to Panel Command Line Reference.



API RPC. This interface is another way to integrate third-party software with Panel.
It allows Panel objects to be managed remotely by sending specifically structured
XML packets and receiving responses from Panel. For more information on API
RPC, refer to Developer's Guide: Read Me First and API RPC Protocol Reference.

The Most Important Files and Directories
Parallels Plesk Panel for Linux installs its main components into the following directory:


On RPM-based operating systems: /usr/local/psa



On DEB-based operating systems: /opt/psa

This directory (main Panel directory) contains Panel core files, command line utilities,
log files and so on.
In addition, Panel creates files and directories outside the main directory. The list below
contains those that you are likely to use when administering Panel.


The main configuration file containing paths to utilities, services and packages used
by Panel:
/etc/psa/psa.conf



The initialization script for opening and closing services during server startup and
shutdown procedures:
/etc/init.d/psa

Initialization scripts for starting and stopping services with xinetd:
/etc/xinetd.d/smtp_psa
/etc/xinetd.d/smtps_psa
/etc/xinetd.d/poppassd_psa
/etc/xinetd.d/ftp_psa
Find more information on xinetd at http://www.xinetd.org/.

10

Introduction to Panel



Panel database:
/var/lib/mysql/psa/



Backup files:
/var/lib/psa/dumps/

In this chapter:
Installation and Upgrade Overview ....................................................................11
Ports Used by Panel ..........................................................................................12
Licensing ...........................................................................................................13

Introduction to Panel

11

Installation and Upgrade Overview
The most common way of installing and upgrading Parallels Plesk Panel is to use the
Parallels Installer utility. This utility connects to the Parallels Updates server where the
Panel distribution packages are stored. It then retrieves, downloads, and installs Panel.
You can download the Parallels Installer utility from
http://www.parallels.com/eu/download/plesk/products/.
For detailed instructions on how to use Parallels Installer, refer to the Installation,
Upgrade, Migration, and Transfer Guide.

Installing Panel in the Parallels Virtuozzo Containers Environment
If you operate in the Parallels Virtuozzo Containers (PVC) environment, you can use
application templates for installing Panel on containers.
When the application templates are installed on a PVC hardware node, they allow you
to easily deploy the application on as many containers as required, saving system
resources such as disk space.
You can obtain the Panel templates at
http://www.parallels.com/eu/download/plesk/products/ or download them using the
PVC command line utility call vzup2date -z (available on PVC 4 and above).
For more information on installing Panel on PVC, read the Installation, Upgrade, Migration,
and Transfer Guide, chapter (Advanced) Installation to Parallels Virtuozzo Containers.

Checking Potential Issues Before Upgrading to Panel 11
If you use Parallels Plesk Panel 9 or earlier and want to upgrade it to Panel 11, you
may encounter problems due to changes in the Panel business model. In particular, it
might be impossible to transfer some settings and business objects.
To efficiently anticipate or resolve the problems, we offer a tool called
plesk101_preupgrade_checker.php. This tool checks potential business logic
issues with upgrading to Panel 10 and later and gives recommendations that help you
fix the possible problems related to transition of Panel objects. You can download the
tool and find descriptions of the report messages at http://kb.parallels.com/9436.

12

Introduction to Panel

Ports Used by Panel
Parallels Plesk Panel is middleware between end users and external services such as
FTP, mail, DNS and others. Due to technical limitations, Panel is able to interact with
these services only if they are available on certain ports.
The list below provides information about services managed through Panel and about
ports on which they should be available for proper interaction with Panel. If you use a
firewall, make sure that the connections to all of these ports are allowed for
corresponding Panel services.
Service name

Ports used by service

Administrative interface of Panel over
HTTPS

TCP 8443

Administrative interface of Panel over HTTP

TCP 8880

VPN service

UDP 1194

Web server

TCP 80, TCP 443

FTP server

TCP 21

SSH (secure shell) server

TCP 22

SMTP (mail sending) server

TCP 25, TCP 465

POP3 (mail retrieval) server

TCP 110, TCP 995

IMAP (mail retrieval) server

TCP 143, TCP 993

Mail password change service

TCP 106

MySQL server

TCP 3306

MS SQL server

TCP 1433

PostgreSQL server

TCP 5432

Licensing Server connections

TCP 5224

Domain name server

UDP 53, TCP 53

Panel upgrades and updates

TCP 8447

Introduction to Panel

13

Note: If you install Presence Builder as part of Parallels Plesk Panel, Presence Builder
uses the same protocol and opens on the same port as the Parallels Plesk Panel UI.

Licensing
After you install Parallels Plesk Panel, a trial license key for 14 days is installed by
default. To continue using Panel after the trial license key expires, you should obtain a
lease license key or purchase a permanent license key.
A leased license means that you pay for a limited time during which you can use Panel,
for example, two months. During the lease period, Panel will perform free monthly
updates of your license key. The lease license includes free upgrades to all major new
versions of Panel.
The permanent license means that you buy a lifetime Panel license. A permanent
license is updated every three months for free. Upgrading a Panel installation with a
permanent license to the next major version requires a separate payment unless you
use Software Update Service (SUS). See http://www.parallels.com/support/sus/ for
more information on SUS.
Panel license keys have a grace period of 10 days before the expiration date. During
the grace period, Panel makes daily attempts to update the license key automatically. If
an automatic update fails, Panel notifies the administrator. If you do not update a
license key during the grace period, it expires and blocks Panel functions until you
install a valid license key.
Panel defines whether it needs to update the license key using the update-keys.php
utility located in the
$PRODUCT_ROOT_D/admin/plib/DailyMaintainance/directory, where the
$PRODUCT_ROOT_D is /usr/local/psa. This utility checks the license grace period
and expiration date and tries to retrieve a new license key or blocks Panel.
Panel runs the utility every day as a part of the daily maintenance script. If you want to
check for license updates, you can run the script manually by executing the command
$PRODUCT_ROOT_D/bin/sw-engine-pleskrun
$PRODUCT_ROOT_D/admin/plib/DailyMaintainance/script.php.
You can retrieve and manage license keys through the Panel GUI. The information
about the current license key and controls for managing license keys are located in
Server Administration Panel > Tools & Settings > License Management.

CHAPTER 2

Virtual Hosts Configuration
Parallels Plesk Panel for Linux uses the Apache web server for websites hosting. In
Panel, Apache by default is supplemented with nginx to achieve better performance.
Apache itself does not operate with websites; it manages virtual hosts - web resources
identified either by an IP address or a host name. When creating a site, Panel adds a
new virtual host to Apache so that the site becomes available through the web server.
Panel resides on a virtual host too; this host is called the default virtual host.
When you add a site in Panel, you select one of the hosting types to use with it: web
page hosting or forwarding. In terms of Apache, you associate the site with a virtual
host of one of three configurations (website hosting, standard forwarding, and frame
forwarding). To learn the differences between these configurations, see the section
Virtual Hosts and Hosting Types (on page 16).
Sites are linked to virtual hosts, so if you want to add some feature provided by Apache
but not available through the Panel GUI, you should change the virtual host settings
using Apache configuration templates. Based on these templates, Panel partly regenerates virtual hosts, so you should follow certain rules when modifying the
configuration; otherwise, some of your changes might be lost. Next in this chapter, we
will discuss virtual hosts in more detail and provide guidelines on how to modify them
safely. To learn more on this point, refer to the section Changing Virtual Hosts Settings
Using Configuration Templates (on page 20).
Panel creates virtual hosts for websites based on virtual host templates. These
templates predefine the content that will be included in each new virtual host. Learn
how to change virtual host templates in Administrator's Guide, section Presetting Content of
Customer Websites ../plesk-administrator-guide/68695.htm.
You can get information on access to each virtual host and Apache errors that have
occurred on the host from Apache logs. Learn more about log files location and rotation
settings in the section Analyzing Access and Errors (on page 29).

Virtual Host IP Addresses
The term virtual host refers to the practice of running more than one website on a
single server or IP address. For example, Apache can manage two websites,
example1.com and example2.com, even if they use a single IP address. Each of
these sites is hosted on a separate virtual host.
There are two types of virtual host, each with different methods of requests routing:


IP-based. Each virtual host has a separate IP address. Apache defines the
requested host based on the host IP address.



Name-based. This supposes that several virtual hosts share the same IP address.
To define a requested host, Apache parses the domain name.

Virtual Hosts Configuration

15

Parallels Plesk Panel uses the name-based approach. In addition, Panel provides an
option to allocate separate IP addresses to customers who do not want to share their
IP address with others. To implement this option, there are two types of IP address in
Panel:


Dedicated IP addresses that have a single owner.



Shared IP addresses that you can allocate to any number of customers.

Resolving Requests to Web Servers
When a client requests a certain domain, Apache parses the requested domain name.
Then Apache searches for the virtual host with the requested domain on the IP address
specified in the request. If the host exists, Apache sends the requested files from this
host to the client.
If the requested virtual host is not found, Panel uses the following entities to resolve the
request:
1. Default domain. This can be created for a specific IP address. If a request to this IP
address contains the name of a non-existent domain, Panel redirects this request to
the default domain.
2. Default virtual host. This accepts all requests to server IP addresses that could not
be directed to any default domain.

In this chapter:
Virtual Hosts and Hosting Types ....................................................................... 16
Changing Virtual Hosts Settings Using Configuration Templates....................... 20
Website Directory Structure ............................................................................... 24
Predefining Values for Customizable PHP Parameters ..................................... 28
Analyzing Access and Errors ............................................................................. 29

16

Virtual Hosts Configuration

Virtual Hosts and Hosting Types
Depending on how you intend to use a site created in Panel, for example, to host web
pages or to forward HTTP requests to another site, you can choose from three hosting
types that define the structure of a virtual host created for this site. The hosting types
are the following:


Website hosting. When you choose this type of hosting, Panel creates a virtual host
(disk space on the local server) for a customer. Customers store their files on a
virtual host and run their websites without having to purchase a server or dedicated
communication lines.



Standard forwarding. In this case, Panel creates a reduced virtual host that does
not store its owner's files and directories. This host is used for redirecting requests
to another network resource. When users try to access the domain, Panel forwards
them to another URL. This URL will be shown in their browsers.



Frame forwarding. In this case, Panel creates a reduced virtual host that does not
store its owner's files and directories. Unlike standard forwarding, frame forwarding
virtual hosts show the requested URL in a browser, not the actual one. Panel uses
HTML frames to show the pages of another site with the requested URL.

The virtual host structure differs depending on hosting type:


Domains with a website hosting type have a directory called document root where
the website files are stored. The configuration of such a virtual host looks like this:


ServerName "domainXX.tst:443"
ServerAlias "www.domainXX.tst"
UseCanonicalName Off

SuexecUserGroup "domainXX.tst" "psacln"

ServerAdmin "admin@mailserver.tst"
DocumentRoot "/var/www/vhosts/domainXX.tst/httpdocs"
CustomLog
/var/www/vhosts/domainXX.tst/statistics/logs/access_ssl_log plesklog
ErrorLog "/var/www/vhosts/domainXX.tst/statistics/logs/error_log"
......................................................................
..



Standard forwarding domains just contain a forwarding address in the configuration
file. No space for storing files is allocated. The configuration of such a virtual host
looks like this:


ServerName "SFdomain.tst.tst"
ServerAlias "www.SFdomain.tst.tst"
ServerAdmin "admin@mailserver.tst"
RedirectPermanent / "http://easytofinddomain.tst/"


Virtual Hosts Configuration



Frame forwarding domains have a document root with a single file index.html
with the  tag that defines the frame and address of the website to
show in the frame. Therefore, the configuration of a frame forwarding virtual host
resembles website virtual host configuration:


ServerName "FFdomainXX.tst"
ServerAlias "www.FFdomainXX.tst"
ServerAdmin "admin@mailserver.tst"
DocumentRoot "/var/www/vhosts/FFdomainXX.tst/httpdocs"

SSLEngine off



When you create a website inside a subscription in Server Administration Panel, the
domain hosting type is set to website hosting. When you create a domain in Control
Panel, you can set a different hosting type. Domain owners are free to change the
hosting types of their domains whenever they wish.
To change the hosting type of a domain, open Control Panel > Websites & Domains, click
the domain name, and go to the Hosting Type > Change.

Next in this section:
Virtual Host Configuration Files ......................................................................... 18

17

18

Virtual Hosts Configuration

Virtual Host Configuration Files
Configuration settings of each virtual host are stored in its configuration files in the
/var/www/vhosts/system//conf/ directory. Particularly, these files
are the following:


_httpd.conf - Apache virtual host configuration.



_nginx.conf - nginx configuration.

The final Apache configuration will include all httpd.conf and nginx.conf files
from all virtual hosts.
Panel lets administrators and domain owners see the history of changes in a virtual
host configuration files by saving each version of these files.  here is a unique
number assigned to a certain configuration state that is used now or was used
previously. To let administrators and domain owners easily access the currently used
configuration file, Panel stores the links last_httpd.conf and last_nginx.conf
that point to the corresponding files.
The system re-generates the configuration files after each change of virtual host
configuration, for example, changing the hosting type of a domain. Therefore, if you
edit httpd.conf and nginx.conf files manually, your changes will be lost after
changing the virtual host settings in the Panel UI. To avoid this, additional files are
used to specify custom configuration for domains:


vhost.conf and vhost_ssl.conf - custom Apache directives for two
situations: when clients access the site over HTTP and HTTPS respectively. These
files are included in the httpd.conf.



vhost_nginx.conf - custom nginx directives. This file is included in the
nginx.conf.

The files with custom per-domain configuration are stored in the
/var/www/vhosts/system//conf/ directory.
Most of the settings specified in these files override the server-wide configuration of a
virtual host (httpd.conf and nginx.conf). For example, if you include directives
that already exist in the site's current httpd.conf file, the system will use your values
from the vhost.conf and vhost_ssl.conf files.

Virtual Hosts Configuration

19

Editing Virtual Host Configuration Files
There are two ways to edit virtual host configuration files:
1. Manually. You can add custom directives to the following files from
/var/www/vhosts/system//conf/ directory:


vhost.conf and vhost_ssl.conf



vhost_nginx.conf

2. In the Panel GUI. On the Websites & Domains > select a website > Web Server Settings
tab you can specify:


Common Apache settings. Most commonly used directives (like MIME types or
index files). These directives will be included in httpd.conf.



nginx settings. Directives that define the scope of nginx's role in serving website's
content of different types (static and dynamic).



Additional Apache directives. You can add several custom Apache directives at
once in the Additional directives for HTTP and Additional directives for HTTPS fields.
These fields correspond to vhost.conf and vhost_ssl.conf files
respectively.



Additional nginx directives. You can add several custom nginx directives at once in
the Additional nginx directives field. This field corresponds to
vhost_nginx.conf file.

The changes you made in the web server configuration will be applied automatically.
Note: If you have upgraded from the older Panel version and are configuring the
vhost.conf and vhost_ssl.conf files for the first time after the upgrade, you will
need to use the httpdmng utility to apply the changes from your configuration files. For
example, to generate web server configuration files for a website, run the command:
/usr/local/psa/admin/sbin/httpdmng --reconfigure-domain


20

Virtual Hosts Configuration

Changing Virtual Hosts Settings Using
Configuration Templates
You can change the settings of virtual hosts running on the Panel server, for example,
set custom error pages (similar for all virtual hosts), or change the port on which the
hosted site is available.
To reduce the risk of errors during modification of configuration files, Parallels Plesk
Panel provides a mechanism for changing virtual host configuration - configuration
templates. Before 11.0 Panel had templates only for Apache configuration files, but
with adding support for nginx administrators can modify nginx templates as well. Read
more about the how Apache and nginx work together in the Administrator's Guide,
section Improving Web Server Performance with nginx (Linux).
Configuration templates are files based on which Panel re-generates certain web
server configuration files. Other configuration files are generated automatically and
cannot be changed. The hierarchy of configuration files generated by Panel
automatically and from templates is shown in the Appendix A (on page 243).
Web server configuration files support versioning. This allows you to roll back to a
previous configuration if the new one contains errors. Panel adds a file version number
to the name of each configuration file. For example, virtual host configuration files
located in the /var/www/vhosts/ directories have the names like
_httpd.include. To quickly access the currently used configuration file of a
virtual host, use the symbolic link last_httpd.include located in the same
directory.
The default templates are located in
/usr/local/psa/admin/conf/templates/default/.
Important: Do not change the default templates. To introduce your changes to the
configuration, copy the templates you need to the
/usr/local/psa/admin/conf/templates/custom/ directory and modify them,
preserving the directory structure, and then modify these copies. You can create new
templates from scratch and place them in the custom/ directory according to the
default structure.
To remove your changes and restore the default configuration, just delete the custom
template files.

 To change virtual hosts configuration using configuration templates:
1. Create the /usr/local/psa/admin/conf/templates/custom/
folder (if there is no such folder yet).
2. Copy and paste the required templates from default/ to custom/
preserving the directory structure. You can find the complete list of
templates and their descriptions in the Appendix B (on page 245).

Virtual Hosts Configuration

21

3. Modify the templates. See the details in the Templates Execution Context
section (on page 22).
4. Check that the modified templates are valid PHP files:
# php -l 

5. Generate new configuration files:
# httpdmng 

Where  is one of the following:


--reconfigure-server generates sever-wide configuration files.



--reconfigure-domain  generates files for a specified
domain.



--reconfigure-all generates all configuration files.

Note: Panel generates configuration files automatically upon a variety of events. For
example, if a website's hosting settings are changed - say PHP is enabled configuration for this website is generated anew.

Example: Modifying Error Pages
1. Copy the error pages template to the custom/ directory:
# mkdir -p
/usr/local/psa/admin/conf/templates/custom/domain/service/
# cp
/usr/local/psa/admin/conf/templates/default/domain/service/er
rordocs.php
/usr/local/psa/admin/conf/templates/custom/domain/service/err
ordocs.php

2. Edit the
/usr/local/psa/admin/conf/templates/custom/domain/ser
vice/errordocs.php file.
3. Check the validity of the file and generate new configuration files.

Next in this section:
Template Execution Context ............................................................................. 22
Example: Changing Default Apache Ports ......................................................... 24

22

Virtual Hosts Configuration

Template Execution Context
In essence, configuration templates are PHP files which, when executed, output web
server configuration files. The templates are executed in the environment where the
specific variables $VAR and $OPT are available.
$VAR is an object containing the data model which should be applied to a template.
The variable contains an essential set of parameters defining the content of web server
configuration. The detailed structure of the array is presented in the Appendix C (on
page 248).
The most important function is IncludeTemplate() which is part of the $VAR array. The
function allows including templates one into another, and it is defined as
IncludeTemplate($templateName, $OPT, $metainfo)

where


$templateName - string denoting name of included template. Required



$OPT - an associative array which passes values to a template. Optional



$metainfo - an associative array which defines certain aliases in the template
context. Optional

The basic function usage is as follows:
## source: default/server.php
includeTemplate('server/tomcat.php') ?>

A text generated by the included template (server/tomcat.php) will be included in
the configuration file.
In cases when the text generated by an included template should depend on the
context, for example, when iterating over a set of values, it is possible to pass
additional parameters to the template.
## source: default/server.php
includeTemplate('service/php.php', array(
'enabled' => false,
)) ?>

Here, we included the service/php.php template and passed the value 'enabled'
=> false to it. In the template being included the passed value is available in the
variable $OPT:
## source: service/php.php


The code in this sample will generate two different blocks of text depending on which
value of the 'enabled' parameter is passed.
Note that $VAR, which contains the data model, can be used in templates being
included as well. Some values of $VAR are defined using the content of $metainfo.
For details on possible $metainfo content and how it affects a template context, refer
to Appendix C (on page 248). For example, by defining the subDomainId value in the
$metainfo parameter, it is possible to set an exact subdomain model available at
$VAR->subDomain in a template being included:
## source: default/domainVhost.php
domain->physicalHosting->subdomains as $subdomain) {
if ($subdomain->ssl) { //if SSL is enabled on a subdomain
//include configuration for subdomain with enabled SSL
echo $VAR->includeTemplate('domain/subDomainVirtualHost.php',
array(
'ssl' => true, // passing $OPT['ssl'] = true
), array(
'subDomainId' => $subdomain->id, // define target
subdomain for which a configuration file is being built
));
}
//include configuration for subdomain with disabled ssl
echo $VAR->includeTemplate('domain/subDomainVirtualHost.php',
array(
'ssl' => false,
), array(
'subDomainId' => $subdomain->id,
));
}
?>

## source: domain/subDomainVirtualHost.php
ServerName "subDomain->asciiName ?>.domain->asciiName ?>:server>webserver->httpsPort : $VAR->server->webserver->httpPort ?>"

24

Virtual Hosts Configuration

Example: Changing Default Apache Ports
Changing the default HTTP and HTTPS ports of a web server is useful when
employing an additional web server for caching purposes. For example, nginx web
server listens on the default ports (80 HTTP, 443 HTTPS), serves static content (for
example, all requests but PHP), and redirects PHP requests to Apache. In turn,
Apache web server listens on custom ports (for example, 8888 and 8999) and serves
dynamic content - PHP requests.

 To change the Apache HTTP port:
Find all occurrences of the string $VAR->server->webserver->httpPort and
replace them with the required port number enclosed in quotation marks, for example:
"3456".

 To change the Apache HTTPS port:
Find all occurrences of the string $VAR->server->webserver->httpsPort and
replace them with the required port number enclosed in quotation marks, for example:
"4567".

Example
To make Apache listen to HTTP requests on port 3456, and HTTPS on 4567, make the
changes described above in all templates.
For example, in domain/domainVirtualHost.php:
domain->physicalHosting->ipAddress>address ?>:server->webserver>httpsPort : $VAR->server->webserver->httpPort ?>>
ServerName "domain->asciiName ?>:server->webserver->httpsPort : $VAR->server>webserver->httpPort ?>"

change to
domain->physicalHosting->ipAddress>address ?>:>
ServerName "domain->asciiName ?>:"

Virtual Hosts Configuration

25

Website Directory Structure
When someone creates a website, Panel not only adds a new virtual host to the web
server but also creates the site’s directory structure and fills the directories with certain
initial content. These directories are located in the corresponding virtual host
directories:


On Linux: /var/www/vhosts/



On Windows: C:\inetpub\vhosts\

 here is the website's domain name. The directory structure is defined by
the default virtual host template (see the sections Virtual Host Structure (Linux) (on page
25) and Virtual Host Structure (Windows) for details).
If you want to change the files and directories included in new sites, for example, you
want to add scripts or change the error pages, you can define a custom virtual host
template. Resellers can also customize virtual host templates for their customers.
Note: Subdomains have the same status as domains and employ the same directory
structure. Thus, they have a separate directory in /var/www/vhosts and their own
configuration files, such as php.ini or vhost.conf.

Next in this section:
Virtual Host Structure (Linux) ............................................................................ 25

Virtual Host Structure (Linux)
The table below shows the list of directories that Panel creates for each virtual host.
Note that Panel does not add all the directories by default. It creates some of the
directories only when the website owner needs them. Such directories are marked as
created On demand. For example, after a customer adds a website, it does not have the
/web_users directory. Panel will create it only after the customer adds his first web
user.
The following table lists subdirectories of a virtual host directory
/var/www/vhosts/:
Directories Tree

Description

Created

User

Group

Permissions

user

root

755

/anon_ftp

user

psaserv

750

Anonymous FTP files On demand

/error_docs

root

psaserv

755

Error message files

Always

user

psaserv

755

user

psaserv

750

HTTP documents

Always

/

.html
/httpdocs

Always

26

Virtual Hosts Configuration

/cgi-bin

user

psacln

755

CGI scripts

Always

root

root

777

Link to
../system/
/logs

Always

/logs
/bin

root

root

755

Chroot environment
directories

On demand

/dev

root

root

755

/etc

root

root

755

/lib

root

root

755

/tmp

root

root

755

/usr

root

root

755

/var

root

root

755

/web_users

root

root

755

Web users' directory

On demand

/ user

psaserv

750

Web user directory

On demand

user

psaserv

750

HTTP and HTTPs
documents of a
subdomain

On demand

/

user

psaserv

750

HTTP and HTTPs
documents of an
additional domain

On demand

/

The following table lists directories created for a virtual host in the
/var/www/vhosts/system/:
Directories Tree

User

Group

Permissions

root

psaserv

744

/conf

root

psaserv

750

/etc

root

root

755

/logs

psaadm psacln

/pd

root

/

Description

Created
Always

Configuration files.

Always

Configuration files

Always

750

Virtual host logs

Always

psaserv

750

Passwords to
Always
protected directories

d..@ root

psaserv

310

Always

root

psaserv

550

Statistics directory

Always

/anon_ftpstat

root

root

755

Anonymous FTP
statistics.

Always

/ftpstat

root

root

755

FTP user statistics

Always

/logs

root

root

777

Link to /logs

Always

/webstat

root

root

755

HTTP user statistics Always

/statistics

Virtual Hosts Configuration
/webstat-ssl

root

root

755

27

HTTPS user
statistics

Always

Differences from Previous Versions
The structure described above was introduced in Panel 11.5. It has the following
differences compared to the structure of earlier Panel versions:


Some directories are created on demand. Previously, all the directories were
created by default.



The following directories were moved from /var/www/vhosts/ to
/var/www/vhosts/system/:
Old Location

New Location

Comment

//conf

/system//conf

Configuration files

//pd

/system//pd

Passwords to protected directo

/system//statistics

Statistics directory

/system//logs

Virtual host logs

//statistics

//statistics/logs



The following directories are not included in Panel virtual hosts:


/httpsdocs



/subdomains



/private

28

Virtual Hosts Configuration

Predefining Values for Customizable PHP
Parameters
Panel allows to define custom PHP configuration for a certain service plan, add-on
plan, subscription, website, and even subdomain. For this purpose, the Panel GUI
exposes 16 most often used PHP parameters that allow customization. The
administrator or a customer can set the value of each parameter either by selecting a
value from a preset, typing a custom value, or leaving the default value. In the latter
case, Panel takes the parameter value from the server-wide PHP configuration.
Using the /usr/local/psa/admin/conf/panel.ini file you can specify what
PHP parameters values will be available in the preset and toggle the visibility of the
custom value field.

Defining the Preset Values
 To set the list of predefined values for a certain PHP parameter, add the
line of the following type to the [php] section of the panel.ini file:
settings...values[]=

where


 - a group of a PHP parameter: performance for the
performance PHP settings and general if the parameter is placed in to the
common group. For more information about the groups of PHP parameters,
read the Administrator's Guide, Custom PHP Configuration.



 - a name of a PHP parameter. Use the same syntax as in
php.ini.



 - a parameter's value added to the preset. Use the same syntax as in
php.ini.

Add such line for each value in the preset. For example, if you want Panel users to
choose the value of the memory_limit parameter between 8M and 16M, add the
following lines to panel.ini:
[php]
settings.performance.memory_limit.values[]=8M
settings.performance.memory_limit.values[]=16M

Virtual Hosts Configuration

29

Hiding the Custom Value Fields
To hide the field that allows entering the custom value for a certain PHP parameter,
add the line of the following type to the [php] section of the panel.ini file:
settings...custom=false

where


 - a group of a PHP parameter: performance for the
performance PHP settings and general if the parameter is placed in to the
common group. For more information about the groups of PHP parameters,
read the Administrator's Guide,



 - a name of a PHP parameter. Use the same syntax as in
php.ini.

For example, if you do not want Panel users to set custom values to the
memory_limit parameter, add the following line to panel.ini:
[php]
settings.performance.memory_limit.custom=false

To switch the custom value field back on, replace false with true.

Analyzing Access and Errors
For each site, Apache writes access and error information to log files. Each site has
two log files - access_log and error_log, which store information on access to that
site and errors respectively. Apache log files for each site are located in the
/statistics/logs subdirectory of the virtual host directory
/var/www/vhosts/, where domain_name is the name of a
corresponding domain.
To save disk space, Panel rotates Apache logs. Learn how to change log rotation
parameters in the Log rotation (on page 131) section.

CHAPTER 3

Services Management
To enable basic hosting services and functions on a Panel-managed server, the Panel
distribution package includes several third-party software applications that are installed
along with Parallels Plesk Panel. These applications are responsible for providing
various hosting services such as DNS, e-mail, FTP, and others.
All software components shipped with Panel can be installed and updated by means of
Parallels Installer. These components are listed at
http://download1.parallels.com/Plesk/PP11/11.5/release-notes/parallels-plesk-panel11.5-for-linux-based-os.html#4.
You can also install and manage through Parallels Plesk Panel many other third-party
applications that are not included in the Parallels Plesk Panel distribution package. For
the complete list of third-party applications currently supported by Panel, refer to
http://download1.parallels.com/Plesk/PP11/11.5/release-notes/parallels-plesk-panel11.5-for-linux-based-os.html#5.
This chapter provides detailed descriptions of different external components used for
providing hosting services on a Panel server.

In this chapter:
DNS .................................................................................................................. 31
FTP ................................................................................................................... 33
Mail Service....................................................................................................... 37
Mailing Lists Management System .................................................................... 44
Database Server ............................................................................................... 46
Website Applications ......................................................................................... 50
Spam Protection ................................................................................................ 51
Antivirus Support ............................................................................................... 56

Services Management

31

DNS
Parallels Plesk Panel for Linux works in cooperation with the BIND (or named) domain
name server that enables you to run a DNS service on the same machine on which you
host websites.
When you add a new domain name to Panel, it automatically generates a zone file for
this domain in accordance with the server-wide DNS zone template and registers it in
the name server's database, then instructs the name server to act as a primary
(master) DNS server for the zone.

Configuring DNS
You can change the name server settings by editing configuration file /var/named/runroot/etc/named.conf (/etc/named.conf is a soft link to it). This file consists of the
following parts:
General Settings containing the following sections:
The Options section contains the directory option referring to /var, which is used as the
base directory relative to $ROOTDIR (which is /var/named/run-root by default) for all
other files used below. It also sets the location where named will store its PID.
The key and control sections define a shared key for managing named with the rndc
utility and access list.


The main part contains several zone sections, one for every direct and reverse
zone in which the server acts as the primary or a secondary name server. As usual,
there is also a root zone section.


The root zone section defines the file with the root zone name servers.



Reverse local loop zone.



A direct zone for every domain and a reverse zone that the server processes as
a name server.

The final part containing the acl section, which defines an access control list of name
server IP addresses where zone transfers are allowed. By default, the common-allowtransfer ACL is included in every zone section.
Note: If you perform change zone entries in the file manually, Panel will override them
with changes made through the GUI.

32

Services Management

Zone files
By default, zone files for domains are stored in the /var/named/run-root/var directory,
as defined in the /var/named/run-root/etc/named.conf file. Each zone file has a name
identical to the domain name. If you change the zone through the GUI, Panel rewrites
the file.
You can change a zone database by adding or deleting resource records as follows:
Using the Panel GUI. In this case, the Panel increases the Serial field value, which
means that the zone transfer operation should be performed to synchronize the zone
content with all secondary name servers.
Manually editing the file. We do not recommend this approach, since Panel completely
rewrites the zone data from the psa database if any changes are made through the
Panel GUI. Do not forget to increase the Serial field in this file. Otherwise, only this
name server will know about the changes made.
Manually editing the psa database. To do this, perform the following steps:
First, you have to insert a corresponding record into the psa.dns_recs table.
mysql> insert into dns_recs (dom_id,type,host,val) values
(2,'A','ws02.domain01.tst.','192.168.1.185');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)

After that, make the Panel reread the domain information from the psa database in one
of the following ways.
 Through the command line:
# /usr/local/psa/admin/sbin/dnsmng update 
Using the Panel GUI, switch the domain to slave and then back to the master mode. In
this case, you do not have to worry about the Serial field as the Panel increases its
value while restoring the file.

Access Control Lists
You can restrict the name server to transferring name zones to only the list of explicitly
assigned DNS servers. Do this by inserting the DNS server IP addresses into the misc
table of the psa database with the following command:
mysql> insert into misc (param, val) values ('DNS_Allow_Transfer1',
);

for the first DNS server in the list.
mysql> insert into misc (param, val) values ('DNS_Allow_Transfer2',
);

for the second DNS server, etc.

Services Management

33

To transfer the changes made in the database to the DNS configuration file, use the
following command:
# /usr/local/psa/admin/sbin/dnsmng update 

The command shown above adds DNS server IP addresses to the common-allowtransfer ACL, which is included in all local name zones. Every domain can have some
additional IP addresses in its ACL. Secondary servers are added to the allow-transfer
list of a domain by the Panel after adding the corresponding NS records to the domain
name zone. In addition, the secondary server must be resolvable and accessible when
it is added to the name zone.

DNS logs
The domain name service writes errors log stored in the /var/log/messages file. The
logrotate utility rotates this log on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Learn how to
configure log rotation in the section Log Rotation (on page 131).

FTP
To provide an FTP service, Panel uses the ProFTPD FTP server. Panel includes the
following two packages:


psa-proftpd which contains the main component.



psa-proftpd-xinetd which contains patches and configurations to work with
xinetd.

FTP Startup
The ProFTPD is started by the xinetd every time the server receives an FTP
request. In the case of authorized access, the FTP service is started on behalf of the
user whose request is to be processed. For anonymous users, the service is started
with the UID of the psaftp user.

FTP Users
The FTP server allows for document access of authenticated users that are listed in the
/etc/passwd and /etc/shadow files. The first one defines the user name, group
membership, home directory, and active access method. The second one stores
password hash values. Let us look at FTP users created during the virtual hosting
setup procedure. The following are some /etc/passwd lines defining FTP user
parameters.
# grep ftp /etc/passwd
ftp:x:14:50:FTP User:/var/ftp:/sbin/nologin
psaftp:x:2524:2522:anonftp psa user:/:/bin/false
ftpuser:x:10006:10001::/var/www/vhosts/domain.tst:/bin/false
ftpuser55:x:10010:10001::/var/www/vhosts/domainXX.tst:/bin/false

34

Services Management

The first two lines are default FTP users. The psaftp is the user on behalf of whom
the FTP service is started when the Panel server receives an anonymous FTP request.
The last two lines define typical FTP users. The group ID 10001 refers to the psacln
group that contains FTP users. The psacln is added to the /etc/ftpchroot file. For every
FTP user logged into the Panel, a “chroot” procedure is executed, which ensures the
user cannot see files owned by other users.
Panel stores all FTP user accounts in a single database; therefore, FTP users cannot
have the same names even if they are created for different virtual hosts. Besides, since
the FTP service cannot be name based, only one virtual host on each IP address can
provide anonymous FTP access.

FTP Configuration
The FTP server configuration parameters are stored in the /etc/proftpd.conf file. Here
are some of the parameters. A sample of the proftpd.conf file is displayed below:
DefaultServer

DefaultRoot ~
AllowOverwrite

DefaultTransferMode
UseFtpUsers

on
psacln
on
binary
on

TimesGMT
off
SetEnv TZ :/etc/localtime
# Port 21 is the standard FTP port.
Port
21
# Umask 022 is a good standard umask to prevent new dirs and files
# from being group and world writable.
Umask
022
# To prevent DoS attacks, set the maximum number of child processes
# to 30. If you need to allow more than 30 concurrent connections
# at once, simply increase this value. Note that this ONLY works
# in standalone mode, in inetd mode you should use an inetd server
# that allows you to limit maximum number of processes per service
# (such as xinetd)
MaxInstances
30
#Following part of this config file were generate by PSA automatically
#Any changes in this part will be overwritten by next manipulation
#with Anonymous FTP feature in PSA control panel.
#Include directive should point to place where FTP Virtual Hosts
configurations
#preserved
ScoreboardFile /var/run/proftpd/scoreboard
# Primary log file mest be outside of system logrotate province
TransferLog /usr/local/psa/var/log/xferlog
#Change default group for new files and directories in vhosts dir to
psacln

GroupOwner psacln


Services Management

35

# Enable PAM authentication
AuthPAM on
AuthPAMConfig proftpd
IdentLookups off
UseReverseDNS off
AuthGroupFile
/etc/group
Include /etc/proftpd.include

Each virtual host FTP configuration is stored in the /etc/proftpd.include file. The
configurations consist of two sections:


The general section configures FTP for authorized users. It configures the
following:


Virtual server name to IP address binding.



Log file path.



Write permission.

Login access allowed only to the psacln group.
Below is a sample of the general section:

ServerName "ftp.swtrn.com"
TransferLog /usr/local/psa/var/log/xferlog
AllowOverwrite on

Order allow, deny
AllowGroup psacln
Deny from all



The Anonymous section configures FTP for anonymous users. It configures:


An alias for the psaftp user account.



anon_ftp as the home directory that is inside the domain directory opened for
the authorized domain user.



A log file for anonymous FTP access.



User and group for anonymous FTP access.

Login access and read-only rights for everyone Below is a sample of this section:
UserAlias anonymous psaftp

TransferLog
/var/www/vhosts/domain.tst/statistics/logs/xferlog
PathDenyFilter "^\.quota$"
RequireValidShell off
TransferRate RETR 0.000
User psaftp
Group psaftp

AllowAll


DenyAll


UserOwner ftpuser

36

Services Management

Umask 022 002

DenyAll


DenyAll


DenyAll


DenyAll



For more information on the ProFTPD configuration, please refer to the
www.proftpd.org.

FTP Logs and Statistics
For each domain, the ProFTPD service writes statistics for both anonymous and
authorized access to log files located in the
/var/www/vhosts//statistics/logs/ directory. Once a day, Panel processes
the logs with the statistics utility and separates the statistical data into two parts:
Anonymous access information stored in the statistics/anon_ftpstat subdirectory of the
virtual host directory.
Authorized access information stored in the statistics/ftpstat/subdirectory.
In addition, the statistics utility writes the statistical data to the psa database and
calls the log rotation utility logrotate. For more information on statistics processing
and log rotation, refer to the chapter Statistics and Logs (on page 128).

Services Management

37

Mail Service
To provide a mail service, Parallels Plesk Panel supports two mail transfer agents:
Postfix and qmail.
Panel uses only one mail transfer agent at a time. You can check which of them is
currently enabled on the following page: Server Administration Panel > Tools & Settings >
Services Management. You can also do this by running the mailmng utility located in the
$PRODUCT_ROOT_D/admin/sbin/directory, where the $PRODUCT_ROOT_D is
/usr/local/psa for RPM-based systems or /opt/psa on DEB-based systems:
./mailmng --features | grep SMTP_Server

By default, Panel for Linux uses the Postfix for sending and receiving mail through the
SMTP and SMTPS protocols. You can switch to qmail by running the following
command:
# /usr/local/psa/admin/sbin/autoinstaller --select-release-current -install-component qmail

To switch to Postfix run the following command:
# /usr/local/psa/admin/sbin/autoinstaller --select-release-current -install-component postfix

Both Postfix and qmail use the same root directory to store incoming mail. This
directory is defined by the variable $PLESK_MAILNAMES_D in the
/etc/psa/psa.conf configuration file. By default, it is /var/qmail/mailnames.
Storing incoming mail in the same directory allows the messages remain available after
switching between mail agents.
Unlike incoming mail, the mail queue is lost while switching between the mail agents.
Therefore, before switching, we recommend you stop the SMTP service to prevent the
acceptance of email and the delivery of all queued mail. To stop the SMTP service, run
the following command:
# /usr/local/psa/admin/sbin/mailmng --stop-smtpd

To flush the queue, run the command:
for qmail: # kill -ALRM `pidof qmail-send`
for Postfix: # postqueue -f

Next in this section:
Restoring Mail Configuration ............................................................................. 38
Installing Custom SSL Certificates for Qmail or Courier-IMAP Mail Servers ...... 39
Outgoing Mail from Exclusive IP Addresses ...................................................... 43

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Restoring Mail Configuration
Sometimes, Parallels Plesk Panel mail server configuration becomes corrupt and it is
necessary to restore it. The restoration is carried out by the internal mchk utility, which is
intended for use by Parallels Plesk Panel. However, as the administrator, you can use it for
restoring the Qmail and Courier-imap configuration when needed.
By default, mchk runs in the background mode. To execute it in the foreground, use the -v
option. For example:
/usr/local/psa/admin/sbin/mchk -v

Note: You may not wish to restore SpamAssassin settings for mail accounts, as it requires
Perl interpreter to be run. To speed up the restore process, use the --without-spam
option.

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Installing Custom SSL Certificates for Qmail or CourierIMAP Mail Servers
To securely exchange mail data with Parallels Plesk Panel server, you may need to install
custom SSL certificates on the Parallels Plesk Panel server. Specifically, SSL certificates can
be installed for the Qmail mail transfer agent and the Courier-IMAP mail server that supports
the IMAP and POP3 protocols.
To install custom SSL certificates, you need to download the certificates to the Parallels
Plesk Panel server and then replace the installed default SSL certificates for Qmail and
Courier-IMAP servers with the downloaded custom certificates.
This section describes procedures for installing custom SSL certificates for Qmail and
Courier-IMAP servers.

Next in this section:
Installing an SSL Certificate for Qmail ............................................................... 40
Installing SSL Certificates for the Courier-IMAP Mail Server ............................. 42

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Installing an SSL Certificate for Qmail
 To install a custom SSL certificate for Qmail on a Parallels Plesk Panel server:
1. Create a combined .pem certificate file.
To create a combined .pem certificate file, start your favorite text editor and paste the
contents of each certificate file and the private key in the file in the following order:

a. The private key
b. The primary certificate
c. The intermediate certificate
d. The root certificate
Make sure that you include the begin and end tags of the key and each certificate
including the dash lines. The resulting text should look like this:
-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY----..........
(Your Private Key here)
..........
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY---------BEGIN CERTIFICATE----..........
(Your Primary SSL certificate here)
..........
-----END CERTIFICATE---------BEGIN CERTIFICATE----..........
(Your Intermediate certificate here)
..........
-----END CERTIFICATE---------BEGIN CERTIFICATE----..........
(Your Root certificate here)
..........
-----END CERTIFICATE-----

2. Save the combined certificate file as plesk.pem.
3. Log in to a Parallels Plesk Panel server through SSH as a root user.
4. Download the combined certificate file plesk.pem.
5. Make a backup copy of the existing default SSL certificate for Qmail.
For example for RedHat or Fedora operating systems, the SSL certificate file that you
need to back up is var/qmail/control/servercert.pem.

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Note: For other operating systems, the default certificate file location may be different.

6. Open the default certificate file /var/qmail/control/servercert.pem
using your favorite text editor, and replace the contents of the file with the
contents of the combined certificate file plesk.pem.
7. Save and close the file.
8. To finish the certificate installation, restart Qmail.

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Installing SSL Certificates for the Courier-IMAP Mail Server
 To install a custom SSL certificate for the Courier-IMAP (IMAP/POP3) mail
server on a Parallels Plesk Panel server:
1. Log in to a Parallels Plesk Panel server through SSH as a root user.
2. Download one or more SSL certificate files that you want to install.
Note: IMAP and POP3 each require separate certificate files, but both files can contain
the same certificate.

3. Make a backup copy of the existing default SSL certificate for the Courier IMAP mail server.
For example for RedHat or Fedora operating systems, you need to back up the following
default SSL certificate files:


/usr/share/courier-imap/imapd.pem - the certificate enables secure data
transfers through the IMAP protocol.



/usr/share/courier-imap/pop3d.pem - the certificate enables secure data
transfers through the POP3 protocol.

Note: For other operating systems, the default certificate file locations may be different.

4. Open a default certificate file using your favorite text editor and replace the
contents of the file, with the content of the SSL certificate file that you want
to install.
For example, the content to be copied from a custom SSL certificate and pasted in lieu of
a default certificate file body should look like this:
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE----MIIB8TCCAZsCBEUpHKkwDQYJKoZIhvcNAQEEBQAwgYExCzAJBgNVBAYTAlJPMQww
............
............
eNpAIeF34UctLcHkZJGIK6b9Gktm
-----END CERTIFICATE---------BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY----MIICXgIBAAKBgQDv6i/mxtS2B2PjShArtOAmdRoEcCWa/LH1GcrbW14zdbmIqrxb
..........
..........
faXRHcG37TkvglUZ3wgy6eKuyrDi5gkwV8WAuaoNct5j5w==
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----

5. Save and close the file.
6. To finish the certificate installation, restart Courier-IMAP.

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43

Outgoing Mail from Exclusive IP Addresses
In earlier Panel versions, the outgoing mail of all customers was sent from a single IP
address (defined by the mail server configuration). Thus, if one of the customers became
blacklisted for sending spam, other customers were automatically blacklisted too since they
used the same IP address. Also, if a customer had several IP addresses, and the address for
outgoing mail did not match the address of the domain, the customer run a risk to be
blacklisted as well.
In the current Panel version, the problem of domain and mail addresses is resolved, and
Postfix mail server uses customers' IP addresses for sending mail if possible. This targets all
outgoing mail of the Panel mail server sent by PHP mail(), sendmail, an SMTP script or
client. However, if the following conditions are true, your system may send mail from different
IP addresses:


You have Postfix 2.7



Panel is configured to support IPv6



A subscription has only a single IPv4 or IPv6,

The outgoing mail for such subscriptions can be equally sent from either the customer's IP
address or the server-defined IP address of the opposite type (IPv6 for IPv4 and vice versa).
This server-defined IP address is specified in the mail server configuration.
Another part of this feature is the sender's address validation: The system validates the MAIL
FROM header for authenticated users and corrects the header if needed. However, if the
mail is sent without authentication, for example, from 127.0.0.1, through the local sendmail,
or a sender is in the white list, the system trusts the MAIL FROM header.

Requirements
This feature is supported on all operating systems which have Postfix 2.7 or later. They are
as follows:
Operating system

Postfix version

CentOS 5

Postfix 2.8.4 packaged by Parallels

CentOS 6

Postfix 2.8.4 packaged by Parallels

RedHat Enterprise Linux
5

Postfix 2.8.4 packaged by Parallels

RedHat Enterprise Linux
6

Postfix 2.8.4 packaged by Parallels

CloudLinux 5

Postfix 2.8.4 packaged by Parallels

CloudLinux 6

Postfix 2.8.4 packaged by Parallels

Ubuntu 10.04

Postfix 2.7

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Services Management

SuSE 11.3

Postfix 2.7

SuSE 11.4

Postfix 2.7

Debian 6

Postfix 2.7

If you independently install Postfix, run the following command to turn on the feature:
/usr/local/psa/admin/sbin/mchk

Read more about the utility in http://kb.parallels.com/944.

Mailing Lists Management System
Mailman is a GNU Mailing List Management System that provides a web-based mail list
administration interface. It can work with almost all known mail transfer agents.

Mailman Directory Structure
Root directory:
/usr/lib/mailman
Executable Python scripts:
/usr/lib/mailman/bin/mailmanctl
/usr/lib/mailman/bin/qrunner
Startup script:
/etc/init.d/mailman with status|stop|start|restart options.
Note that /etc/init.d may be /etc/rc.d/init.d on some systems.
Configuration:
usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/Defaults.py
usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/mm_cfg.py is changed by the Panel when working with mail lists.
Mail lists:
/var/lib/mailman/lists/
Documentation:
/usr/share/doc/mailman-2.1.x/

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Next in this section:
Configuring a Mailing List to Which only Members Are Allowed to Post ............. 46
Importing a List of E-mail Addresses into a Mailing List ..................................... 46

45

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Configuring a Mailing List to Which only Members Are
Allowed to Post
By default, when you create a mailing list, everyone may send correspondence to this list. If
you need to configure a mailing list that only members are allowed to send mail to, you can
do this through the WEB Mailman interface.

 To configure a mailing list that only members are allowed to post to:
1. Log in to the WEB Mailman interface as the list administrator.
2. Enable the Restrict posting privilege to list members option.
Note: By default a mailing list is created with the Posts must be approved by an administrator
option enabled. That means all messages must be approved by the moderator before they
are posted to the list. Therefore, if this option is disabled and unwanted mail is posted to the
list, you can re-enable it and moderate incoming messages.
For more information, please see Mailman documentation at:
http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/docs.html.

Importing a List of E-mail Addresses into a Mailing List
If you need to import a number of e-mail addresses into a mailing list, adding them
individually can take a long time. To automate this task you can use Parallels Plesk Panel
command-line utilities. To add several e-mail addresses to the mailing list, run the following
command:
# /usr/local/psa/bin/maillist.sh --update  -members
add:[,,...,]

Database Server
In addition to databases that store websites data, Panel has its own database for storing
information about customer and resellers accounts, their subscriptions, and so on. This
database is called psa and located on the local MySQL server. The local MySQL server is
installed together with Panel and is required for Panel functioning. However, since version
11.5, you can replace the local MySQL server with an alternative database server, for
example, MariaDB (https://mariadb.org) or Percona Server
(http://www.percona.com/software/percona-server)
Below in this section we will explain how to replace MySQL with MariaDB. For other MySQL
replacements, instructions are basically the same.

Next in this section:
Using MariaDB or Percona as the Default Database Server .............................. 47

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47

Using MariaDB or Percona as the Default Database Server
Below we will provide instructions on replacing MySQL server with MariaDB server. For
Percona Server, the steps are the same, the only differences are in configuring repositories
and package names.

 To replace your MySQL server with MariaDB:
1. Back up databases located on your MySQL server. Use one of the following
commands:
 To back up all databases:
# mysqldump -uadmin -p`< /etc/psa/.psa.shadow ` --all-databases |
gzip > /root/mysql.all.dump.sql.gz
 To back up only data required by Panel:
# mysqldump -uadmin -p`< /etc/psa/.psa.shadow ` --databases mysql
psa apsc | gzip > /root/mysql.mysql-psa-apsc.dump.sql.gz

2. Configure the MariaDB repository on your server. To generate the repository
configuration for your operating system, use the wizard available at
https://downloads.mariadb.org/mariadb/repositories/. When selecting the
MySQL version, choose the version not less than your current MySQL
version. Additionally, the version must not be higher than 5.5.
Note: Once you install MariaDB, do not disable this repository on your server. Panel
requires it for updates.

3. Stop the Watchdog Panel extension if it is installed on your server and stop
other monitoring services that can start the mysql service once you stop it
manually.
4. Install MariaDB using one of the instructions provided below.
5. Switch on Watchdog and start other services you stopped on step 3.
6. Notify Panel about the changes in the MySQL component:
plesk sbin packagemng --set-dirty-flag

7. (Optional) If you experience MySQL errors after updating, restore the backup
you created on step 1:
zcat /root/mysql.all.dump.sql.gz | mysql -uadmin -p`<
/etc/psa/.psa.shadow `

 To install MariaDB on CentOS or RedHat:
1. Stop the mysql service:
service mysqld stop

2. Remove the MySQL server from your server:
rpm -e --nodeps `rpm -q --whatprovides mysql-server`

3. Remove any leftovers of MySQL and install MariaDB:

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Note: this will not remove any Panel packages except plesk-mysql.
yum shell
> remove mysql mysql-server plesk-mysql
> install MariaDB-server MariaDB-client MariaDB-compat MariaDBshared
> run

4. (Optional) Repalce your MySQL configuration file /etc/my.cnf with the the
MariaDB server's default one. This step is required if you are not sure that
MariaDB can work with your configuration file. Usually, MariaDB is
compatible with MySQL configuration files.
[ -f /etc/my.cnf.rpmnew ] && mv /etc/my.cnf.rpmnew /etc/my.cnf

5. Start the MariaDB server:
service mysql start

6. Update the tables structure:
mysql_upgrade -uadmin -p`< /etc/psa/.psa.shadow `
If you experience MySQL errors after updating, restore the backup you created on step 1:
zcat /root/mysql.all.dump.sql.gz | mysql -uadmin -p`<
/etc/psa/.psa.shadow `

 To install MariaDB on Debian or Ubuntu:
1. Synchronize package index files from new sources:
apt-get update

2. Depending on your OS and the selected MariaDB version, run one of the
following commands:
 On Debian 7 or Ubuntu 12.04 (in this case, the only available MariaDB version is 5.5):
env DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt-get -o
OrderList::Score::Immediate=1000 install mariadb-server mysqlcommon libmariadbclient18
 On Debian 6 or Ubuntu 10.04 and configured repositories for MariaDB 5.5:
env DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt-get -o
OrderList::Score::Immediate=1000 install mariadb-server mysqlcommon
 On Debian 6 or Ubuntu 10.04 and configured repositories for MariaDB 5.2 or 5.3:
env DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt-get -o
OrderList::Score::Immediate=1000 install mariadb-server mysqlcommon libmariadbclient16
Note: If during the installation the system asks you to provide the MariaDB password,
leave it empty. Otherwise, Panel will be unable to access the MariaDB server and
installation will fail.

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49

 To install MariaDB on SuSE:
1. Stop the mysql service:
service mysql stop

2. Install MariaDB:
zypper install mariadb

3. Start the MariaDB server:
systemctl --system daemon-reload
service mysql start

 To perform a clean installation of Panel with MariaDB:
1. Configure the MariaDB repository as described above.
2. Install MariaDB using instructions provided above.
If MySQL is not installed on the server, it is enough to run the following command:
 On CentOS or Redhat:
yum install MariaDB-server MariaDB-client MariaDB-compat
 On Debian or Ubuntu:
apt-get install mariadb-server
 On SuSE:
zypper install mariadb

3. Install Panel 11.5 or later as described in the Installation, Uprgade, Migration, and
Transfer Guide. Make sure that the MySQL server support component is selected.

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Website Applications
Multiple Web Apps in a Single Directory
Since Panel 10.4, when a site employs a number of various web apps, a site administrator
may apply the following site structure:


Install a number of apps to the same directory. More specifically, install one app into a
subdirectory of another.



Use the same document root for a subdomain and a web app.

For example, you can install an online store app to the httpdocs directory of your domain
(for example, example.com), create a subdomain (for example, support.example.com) in the
httpdocs/support, and install a help desk system there.
All earlier Panel versions (before 10.4) prohibited such scenarios as sometimes (in very rare
cases), the installation of two web apps into one directory could lead to the improper
functioning of one of them. If you want to return this restriction back, add the following lines
into /usr/local/psa/admin/conf/panel.ini:
[aps]
unsafePaths=false

Hiding Commercial Apps
You can hide commercial web applications by default, so that your customers are able to
install only free applications. To do this, add the following lines into panel.ini:
[aps]
commercialAppsEnabled = false

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51

Spam Protection
SpamAssassin is a rule-based mail filter that identifies spam. It uses a wide range of
heuristic tests on mail headers and body text to identify spam.
SpamAssassin filtering is configured on two levels:


Server-level configuration is done by Panel administrator.



Mail directory-level configuration is done by users for specific mail directories.

At the server level, you (as a Panel administrator) can enable or disable any of these two
types of filters. Thus, there are four possible situations:
No filtering is applied, when spamd daemon is not running:


both filters are disabled by the Parallels Plesk Panel administrator.



the personal filter is disabled at the mail directory level.




Filtering is applied at the server level only.
Filtering is applied at the mail box level only.



Filtering is applied at both levels.

When both filters are enabled for a specific mail name, a combined filter is created for the
corresponding mail directory. When processing messages, SpamAssassin calculates the
number of hits according to its internal rules. A message is considered to be spam if the
number of hits exceeds the established threshold, which is set to 7 by default. You can
change the threshold in Panel. White and Black lists can be considered special rules, which
assign constant hit rates to messages conforming to mail address patterns in these lists:
If the message source address conforms to the Black list, the message gets +100 hits by
default.
If the message source address conforms to the White list, the message gets -100 hits by
default.
Sometimes, a message matches both Black and White lists. In that case, it has +100-100=0
hits.
If the message destination address is included in the server-wide ignore list, then all
messages to this address will go directly to the addressed mail directory.
At the server level, you can configure SpamAssassin to mark messages with a special string
if they are recognized as containing spam. At the mailbox level, you can make
SpamAssassin delete or mark the message if it is considered as spam.
Starting from Panel 9.x, the maximum message size to filter is hardcoded in the spam
handler and set to 256KB. This value provides normal server loading. Since the
SpamAssassin service consists of perl modules, they may result in a heavy server load when
processing long messages.
You can get more information on SpamAssassin at spamassassin.apache.org

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Next in this section:
Configuring SpamAssassin ............................................................................... 52
Training SpamAssassin to Work with All Mail Accounts on the Server .............. 53
Fighting Spam on a Qmail Mail Server .............................................................. 54

Configuring SpamAssassin
The SpamAssassin configuration is stored in the spamfilter and spamfilter_preferences
tables of the psa database. You can manage it with the
$PRODUCT_ROOT_D/admin/bin/spammng utility. It displays help if started without any
options.
Server-wide SpamAssassin settings are stored in the following files:
The /usr/share/spamassasin/*.cf files contain configuration details, e.g. White list and Black
list scores are assigned in the 50_scores.cf configuration file.
The /etc/mail/spamassassin/local.cf stores server-wide filter settings.
When Panel works with virtual mail users (not real system users with UIDs) spamd is
executed with keys showing where to find the configuration files of virtual users:
-x --virtual-config-dir={QMAIL_MAILNAMES_D}/%d/%l User settings are stored in the
following files:
/var/qmail/mailnames///.spamassassin/user_prefs file defines
SpamAssassin actions.
/var/qmail/mailnames///.qmail defines how message flow reaches
SpamAssassin daemons.
If the message destination address is included in the server-wide ignore list then all
messages to this address will go directly to the addressed mail directory. For example, if you
include admin@domain01.tst in this list, then the .qmail file will look like this:
#
|
|
|

cat /var/qmail/mailnames/domainXX.tst/mailuser/.qmail
/usr/local/psa/bin/psa-spamc accept
true
/usr/bin/deliverquota ./Maildir

If SpamAssassin filtering is allowed then the following command allows the mail to go
through the spam filter first and then to the mailbox added to this file:
| spamc -f -u admin@domainXX.tst|maildir ./Maildir/

You can find examples of spam-like and no-spam messages in:
/usr/share/doc/spamassassin-3.2.x/sample-nonspam.txt
/usr/share/doc/spamassassin-3.2.x/sample-spam.txt

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53

Training SpamAssassin to Work with All Mail Accounts on
the Server
You can manually train SpamAssassin to work with all mail accounts on the server from the
command line.

 To train SpamAssassin to work with all mail names on the server:
1. Store spam and ham (non-spam) messages in two different folders, for
example spam_mails and ham_mails.
2. Train SpamAssassin to work with one mailbox using the messages from
these folders:
# cd /path/to/spam_mail/
# for message in * ; do /usr/local/psa/admin/sbin/spammng --bayes -mailname=mailname@domain.com --spam=$message ; done
# cd /path/to/ham_mail/
# for message in * ; do /usr/local/psa/admin/sbin/spammng --bayes -mailname=mailname@domain.com --ham=$message ; done

3. Repeat this command for every mailbox on the server or just copy ba yes
bases (./domain.com/mailname/.spamassassin/bayes_*) from this mailbox to
other mailboxes with the following command:
# find /var/qmail/mailnames/ -mindepth 2 -maxdepth 2 -type d -exec /bin/cp
-f /var/qmail/mailnames/domain.com/mailname/.spamassassin/bayes_*
{}/.spamassassin/ \;

where domain.com and mailname should be replaced with the real domain name and
mail name.

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Fighting Spam on a Qmail Mail Server
When unsolicited e-mails, or spam, are simultaneously sent indiscriminately to multiple mail
boxes on your server, there may be too many messages in the queue. Then the server can
become overloaded with spam and mail is delivered slowly.

 To get rid of spam on your Qmail mail server:
1. Make sure that all domains have the option What to do with mail sent to
nonexistent users set to Reject.
To change the value of this option for a domain, open it in the Control Panel, go to the Mail
tab and click Change Settings.

2. Make sure that there are no untrusted IP addresses or networks in the white
list.
To do this, go to Home > Mail Server Settings > White List tab. To remove untrusted IP
addresses or networks, select them in the list and click Remove Selected.

3. Check how many messages there are in the Qmail queue with:
# /var/qmail/bin/qmail-qstat

messages in queue: 27645
messages in queue but not yet preprocessed: 82
If there are too many messages in the queue, try to find out where the spam is coming
from. If the mail is being sent by an authorized user, but not from a PHP script, you can
find out which user sent most of the messages with the following command:
# cat /usr/local/psa/var/log/maillog |grep -I smtp_auth |grep -I
user |awk '{print $11}' |sort |uniq -c |sort -n
Note that the SMTP authorization option should be enabled on the server to see these
records. The path to maillog may be different depending on the OS you use.

4. Use the qmail-qread utility to read the messages headers:
# /var/qmail/bin/qmail-qread

18 Jul 2005
done remote
done remote
done remote
....

15:03:07 GMT #2996948 9073  bouncing
user1@domain1.com
user2@domain2.com
user3@domain3.com

The qmail-qread utility shows message senders and recipients. If a message has too
many recipients, then it is probably spam.

5. Try to find the message in the queue by it's ID (for example, the message ID
is #1234567):
# find /var/qmail/queue/mess/ -name 1234567

6. Look at the message and find the last Received line. This shows where the
message was initially sent from.
 If you find something like:
Received: (qmail 19514 invoked by uid 12345); 10 Sep 2008 17:48:22
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55

it means that this message was sent via a CGI script by user with UID 12345. Use this
UID to find a corresponding domain:
# grep 12345 /etc/passwd
 Received lines like:
Received: (qmail 19622 invoked from network); 10 Sep 2008 17:52:36
+0700
Received: from external_domain.com (192.168.0.1)
means that the message was accepted for delivery via SMTP and the sender is an
authorized mail user.
If the Received line contains an UID of an apache user (for example invoked by
uid 48), it means that the spam was sent via a PHP script. In this case you can try to
find the spammer using information from the spam e-mails (from/to addresses,
subjects, etc). But it is usually hard to find the spam source in this case. If you are
sure that a script is sending spam at the current moment (for example, because the
queue is growing very fast), you can use this little script to find out what PHP scripts
are running in real-time:
# lsof +r 1 -p `ps axww | grep httpd | grep -v grep | awk ' {
if(!str) { str=$1 } else { str=str","$1}}END{print str}'` | grep
vhosts | grep php



To try to find out from what folder the PHP script that is sending mail was run, create
/var/qmail/bin/sendmail-wrapper script with the following content:
#!/bin/sh
(echo X-Additional-Header: $PWD ;cat) | tee -a
/var/tmp/mail.send|/var/qmail/bin/sendmail-qmail "$@"
Note, the paths can slightly differ depending on your OS and Parallels Plesk Panel
version.

#
#
#
#
#

Create a log file /var/tmp/mail.send and grant it a+rw rights, make the wrapper
executable, rename old sendmail and link it to the new wrapper:
touch /var/tmp/mail.send
chmod a+rw /var/tmp/mail.send
chmod a+x /var/qmail/bin/sendmail-wrapper
mv /var/qmail/bin/sendmail /var/qmail/bin/sendmail-qmail
ln -s /var/qmail/bin/sendmail-wrapper /var/qmail/bin/sendmail

Wait for about an hour and revert sendmail back:
# rm -f /var/qmail/bin/sendmail
# ln -s /var/qmail/bin/sendmail-qmail /var/qmail/bin/sendmail
Examine the /var/tmp/mail.send file. There should be lines starting with XAdditional-Header pointing to domain folders where the script that sends the mail
is located.
You can see all the folders from which mail PHP scripts were run by using the
following command:
# grep X-Additional /var/tmp/mail.send | grep `cat
/etc/psa/psa.conf | grep HTTPD_VHOSTS_D | sed -e
's/HTTPD_VHOSTS_D//' `
If you see no output from the command above, it means that no mail was sent using
the PHP mail() function from the Parallels Plesk Panel virtual hosts directory.

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Antivirus Support
Parallels Plesk Panel for Linux supports the following antivirus software:


Parallels Premium Antivirus based on Dr.Web.



Kaspersky Antivirus.

Both these solutions provide you with real-time mail traffic scanning and malware protection
for customers. In this section you will find detailed information on these antivirus solutions.

Next in this section:
Parallels Premium Antivirus ............................................................................... 57
Kaspersky Antivirus ........................................................................................... 59

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57

Parallels Premium Antivirus
Parallels Premium Antivirus is shipped with Panel in the form of RPM packages.

Directory Structure
Root directory:
/opt/drweb/
Configuration files:
/etc/drweb/ is a directory with various configuration files.
/etc/drweb/drweb32.ini is the default configuration file for drwebd engine.
/etc/drweb/drweb_qmail.conf is the configuration file for the qmail-queue filter.
/etc/drweb/users.conf stores the configuration for every mail name for which antivirus is
enabled.
Virus databases:
/var/drweb/bases/*vdb
Quarantine directory:
/var/drweb/infected/
Log file:
/var/drweb/log/drwebd.log

Managing the Antivirus
The Dr.Web service is a standalone drwebd daemon (also called engine), which is started
from the /etc/init.d/drwebd script. You can also stop and start it again with the following
command:
# /etc/init.d/psa stopall
# /etc/init.d/psa start

Note: these commands stop and start other Panel services: DNS server, mail server, and so
on
You can also manage it within the Services Management page in the Server Administration
Panel.
The interaction with drwebd is established through the Dr.Web client. It can change antivirus
parameters and start checking files. The client displays a full list of its attributes if run without
attributes. Also, it can extract detailed operational information from the engine. The following
command gives information about the Dr.Web version and virus database.

58

Services Management

# /opt/drweb/drwebdc -sv -sb

By default, the virus databases are updated every 30 minutes by means of the cron task:
/opt/drweb/update/update.pl >dev/null 2>&1

Filtering Mail
Dr.Web substitutes the native qmail-queue filter used for transferring incoming messages to
the qmail queue with its own utility. The utility's configuration settings are stored in the
/etc/drweb/drweb_handler.conf file.
Dr.Web filtering is activated on the mail name level. If enabled it can check incoming,
outgoing or both kinds of messages. The information is stored in the /etc/drweb/users.conf
file. The following is an example of three mail names with different Dr.Web configurations:
# grep domain01 /etc/drweb/users.conf
allow
any
regex
^admin@domain01.tst$
allow
to
regex
^user01@domain.tst$
allow
from
regex
^user02@domain.tst$

In the above configuration, Dr.Web will check viruses in:
Incoming and outgoing messages for admin@domain01.tst
Incoming messages for user01@domain01.tst
Outgoing messages for user02@domain01.tst

Services Management

59

Kaspersky Antivirus
Kaspersky Antivirus is a module that scans incoming and outgoing mail traffic on your server,
and removes malicious and potentially dangerous code from e-mail messages. In order to
use Kaspersky Antivirus with your Parallels Plesk Panel server, you need to install the
Kaspersky Antivirus module, then purchase and install a license key.
Kaspersky Antivirus is distributed as an RPM package.

Kaspersky Antivirus Structure
Kaspersky Antivirus resides in the following directories in Panel.
/opt/kav/5.5/kav4mailservers - the main directory.
/etc/kav/5.5/kav4mailservers/kav4mailservers.conf - a configuration file that contains
parameters as key=value pairs grouped by sections. They define the operation of all
Kaspersky Antivirus components. All configuration file parameters are grouped into sections,
each of them corresponding to a particular component of the product.
/var/db/kav/5.5/kav4mailservers/bases - a path to the anti-virus database directory.
/var/db/kav/5.5/kav4mailservers/licenses - a path to the license keys directory.
Incoming and outgoing mail messages are processed like this:
1. The stream of mail messages comes in from other servers or mail clients via the SMTP
protocol.
2. The mail system receives the mail traffic and passes it to Kaspersky Antivirus for
scanning.
3. The application processes the mail traffic according to the specified settings, and returns
it to the mail system along with an additional set of notifications.
4. The mail system routes the mail traffic to its destination.

CHAPTER 4

System Maintenance
This chapter discusses tasks that administrators may need to perform on an existing
Panel installation. In particular, the chapter provides overviews on how to manage
Panel through the command line and execute scripts or binaries on certain Panel
events. In addition, you will learn how to adjust Panel settings to fit a new network
environment or server configuration, and restart Panel to apply new settings.

In this chapter:
Managing Panel Objects Through the Command Line ...................................... 60
Executing Custom Scripts on Panel Events ....................................................... 61
Changing IP Addresses ..................................................................................... 61
Changing Paths to Services .............................................................................. 62
Restarting Panel................................................................................................ 63
Managing Services from the Command Line and Viewing Service Logs ........... 63
Moving the Panel GUI to a Separate IP Address ............................................... 74

Managing Panel Objects Through the
Command Line
Parallels Plesk Panel Command Line Interface (CLI) is designed for integrating Panel
with third-party applications. Panel administrators can also use it to create, manage,
and delete customer and domain accounts, and other Panel objects from the command
line. CLI utilities require administrative permissions on Panel server to run.
The utilities reside in the following directories:


On RPM-based systems: /usr/local/psa/bin



On DEB-based systems: /opt/psa/bin

Upon successful execution, utilities return the 0 code. If an error occurs, utilities return
code 1 and display the error details.
To learn more about Panel command line utilities, refer to Panel 11.5 Command Line
Reference at http://download1.parallels.com/Plesk/PP11/11.5/Doc/en-US/online/pleskunix-cli/.

System Maintenance

61

Executing Custom Scripts on Panel Events
Parallels Plesk Panel provides a mechanism that allows administrators to track specific
Panel events and make Panel execute custom scripts when these events occur. The events
include operations that Panel users perform on accounts, subscriptions, websites, service
plans, and various Panel settings. For example, you can save each added IP address to a
log file or perform other routine operations.
To learn how to track Panel events and set up execution of commands or custom scripts,
refer to Parallels Plesk Panel Administrator's Guide, chapter Event Tracking.

Changing IP Addresses
During the lifetime of a Parallels Plesk Panel server, you may need to change the IP
addresses employed by Panel. Two typical cases when IP addresses may need to be
changed are the following:


Reorganization of the server IP pool. For example, substitution of one IP address with
another.



Relocation of Panel to another server. Changing all addresses used by Panel (including
the one on which Panel resides) to those on the new server.

Every time the change happens, you should reconfigure all related system services. To help
you do this promptly, we offer the reconfigurator command line utility located in the
following directory:


on RPM-based systems:/usr/local/psa/bin.



on DEB-based systems:/opt/psa/bin.

The reconfigurator replaces IP addresses and modifies Panel and services
configuration to make the system work properly after the replacement. To do this, the utility
requires a mapping file, that includes instructions on what changes to make. Each line of the
file should describe a single change. For example, the following line instructs Panel to
change the IP address 192.168.50.60 to 192.168.50.61:
eth0:192.168.50.60 255.255.255.0 -> eth0:192.168.50.61 255.255.255.0
The utility also helps you with creation of the mapping file. If you call the utility with a new file
name as an option, it will create the file and write all available IP addresses to it. The IP
addresses in the file are mapped to themselves. If you want to perform a change, modify the
change instruction for a certain IP address.
When editing the mapping file, consider the following:


A replacement IP address must not exist in the Panel IP pool before changing; however,
it may be in the server IP pool. To make sure the IP is not in the Panel IP pool, go to
Server Administration Panel > Tools & Settings > IP Addresses and remove the IP if necessary.



If a replacement IP address does not exist in the server IP pool, the utility adds it to both
Panel and server IP pools.

62

System Maintenance

 To change IP addresses used by Panel:
1. Generate a mapping file with current Panel IP addresses by running the
command:
./reconfigurator 

2. Edit the file as described above and save it.
3. Reconfigure Panel and its services by running the following command one
more time:
./reconfigurator 

Changing Paths to Services
Parallels Plesk Panel uses various external components, for example, Apache web server,
mail service, antivirus, and so on. When interacting with these components, Panel gets the
information on their locations from the configuration file /etc/psa/psa.conf.
Panel configuration file provides an easy way of reconfiguring Panel if a service is installed
into another directory or migrated from the current partition to another. Note that you can only
modify paths present in this file; other paths are hard-coded in Panel components.
Each line of psa.conf has the following format:
 

A sample part of the psa.conf file is displayed below. To change a path to a service, utility,
or package, specify the new path as a value of a corresponding variable.
# Plesk tree
PRODUCT_ROOT_D /usr/local/psa
# Directory of SysV-like Plesk initscripts
PRODUCT_RC_D /etc/init.d
# Directory for config files
PRODUCT_ETC_D /usr/local/psa/etc
# Directory for service utilities
PLESK_LIBEXEC_DIR /usr/lib/plesk-9.0
# Virtual hosts directory
HTTPD_VHOSTS_D /var/www/vhosts
# Apache configuration files directory
HTTPD_CONF_D /etc/httpd/conf
# Apache include files directory
HTTPD_INCLUDE_D /etc/httpd/conf.d
# Apache binary
HTTPD_BIN /usr/sbin/httpd
#Apache log files directory
HTTPD_LOG_D /var/log/httpd
#apache startup script
HTTPD_SERVICE httpd
# Qmail directory
QMAIL_ROOT_D /var/qmail

Important: Be very careful when changing the contents of psa.conf. Mistakes in paths
specified in this file may lead to Panel malfunctioning.

System Maintenance

63

Restarting Panel
If you experience problems with Parallels Plesk Panel, for example, malfunctioning of a
service, you can try to resolve them by restarting Panel or the administrative web server swcp-server. Also, a restart is necessary to apply configuration changes that cannot be made
while Panel is running.

 To restart Parallels Plesk Panel, run the following command:
/etc/init.d/psa restart

 To restart sw-cp-server, run the following command:
/etc/init.d/sw-cp-server restart

Managing Services from the Command Line
and Viewing Service Logs
This section describes how to stop, start, and restart services managed by Panel, and
access their logs and configuration files.

Parallels Plesk Panel web interface
To start the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/psa start

To stop the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/psa stop

To restart the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/psa restart

Panel log files are located in the following directories:


Error Log: /var/log/sw-cp-server/error_log

Access log: /usr/local/psa/admin/logs/httpsd_access_log Panel configuration
files are the following:


php: $PRODUCT_ROOT_D/admin/conf/php.ini



www: /etc/sw-cp-server/applications.d/plesk.conf

64

System Maintenance

Presence Builder
Log files are located in:


Error log: /var/log/httpd/sitebuilder_error.log

Logs: /usr/local/sitebuilder/tmp/ Configuration files are accessible at:


/usr/local/sitebuilder/config



/usr/local/sitebuilder/etc/php.ini

SSO
Log files are located in:


Error log: /var/log/sw-cp-server/error_log

SSO log: /var/log/sso/sso.log Configuration files are accessible at:


/etc/sw-cp-server/applications.d/sso-cpserver.conf



/etc/sso/sso_config.ini

phpMyAdmin
The error log is located in:
/var/log/sw-cp-server/error_log
The configuration file is accessible at:
/usr/local/psa/admin/htdocs/domains/databases/phpMyAdmin/libraries/c
onfig.default.php

phpPGAdmin
The error log is located in:
/var/log/sw-cp-server/error_log
The configuration file is accessible at:
/usr/local/psa/admin/htdocs/domains/databases/phpPgAdmin/conf/config
.inc.php

System Maintenance

DNS / Named / BIND
To start the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/named start

To stop the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/named stop

To restart the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/named restart

Log files are located in:
/var/log/messages
The configuration file is accessible at:
/etc/named.conf

FTP (ProFTPD)
Log files are located in:
/usr/local/psa/var/log/xferlog
Configuration files are accessible at:


/etc/xinetd.d/ftp_psa



/etc/proftpd.conf



/etc/proftpd.include

Courier-IMAP
To start the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/courier-imap start

To stop the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/courier-imap stop

To restart the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/courier-imap restart

Log files are located in:
/usr/local/psa/var/log/maillog

Configuration files are accessible at:


/etc/courier-imap/imapd



/etc/courier-imap/imapd-ssl



/etc/courier-imap/pop3d



/etc/courier-imap/pop3d-ssl

65

66

System Maintenance

QMail
To start the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/qmail start

To stop the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/qmail stop

To restart the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/qmail restart

Log files are located in:
/usr/local/psa/var/log/maillog
Configuration files are accessible at:


/etc/xinetd.d/smtp_psa



/etc/xinetd.d/smtps_psa



/etc/xinetd.d/submission_psa



/etc/inetd.conf (Debians)



/var/qmail/control/

Postfix
To start the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/postfix start

To stop the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/postfix stop

To restart the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/postfix restart

Log files are located in:
/usr/local/psa/var/log/maillog
Configuration files are accessible at:
/etc/postfix/

SpamAssassin
To start the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/psa-spamassassin start

To stop the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/psa-spamassassin stop

System Maintenance

To restart the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/psa-spamassassin restart

Log files are located in:
/usr/local/psa/var/log/maillog
Configuration files are accessible at:


/etc/mail/spamassassin/



/etc/mail/spamassassin/local.cf



/var/qmail/mailnames/%d/%l/.spamassassin

Dr.Web antivirus
To start the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/drwebd start

To stop the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/drwebd stop

To restart the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/drwebd restart

Log files are located in:
/usr/local/psa/var/log/maillog
Configuration files are accessible at:
/etc/drweb/

Kaspersky antivirus
To start the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/aveserver start

To stop the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/aveserver stop

To restart the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/aveserver restart

Log files are located in:


/usr/local/psa/var/log/maillog



/var/log/kav/5.5/kav4mailservers/aveserver.log



/var/log/kav/5.5/kav4mailservers/smtpscanner.log



/var/log/kav/5.5/kav4mailservers/avstats.log



/var/log/kav/5.5/kav4mailservers/kavscanner.log

67

68

System Maintenance

/var/log/kav/5.5/kav4mailservers/kavupdater.log Configuration files are
accessible at:
/etc/kav/5.5/kav4mailservers/

Tomcat
To start the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/tomcat5 start

To stop the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/tomcat5 stop

To restart the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/tomcat5 restart

Log files are located in:
/var/log/tomcat5/
Configuration files are accessible at:
/usr/share/tomcat5/conf/

MySQL
To start the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/mysqld start

To stop the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/mysqld stop

To restart the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/mysqld restart

Log file is located in:
/var/log/mysqld.log
The configuration file is accessible at:
/etc/my.cnf

PostgreSQL
To start the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/postgresql start

To stop the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/postgresql stop

System Maintenance

To restart the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/postgresql restart

Startup log is located in:
/var/lib/pgsql/pgstartup.log
The configuration file is accessible at:
/var/lib/pgsql/data/postgresql.conf

xinetd
To start the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/xinetd start

To stop the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/xinetd stop

To restart the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/xinetd restart

Log files are located in:
/var/log/messages/
The configuration file is accessible at:
/etc/xinetd.conf

Watchdog (monit)
To start the service through the command line:
/usr/local/psa/admin/bin/modules/watchdog/wd --start

To stop the service through the command line:
/usr/local/psa/admin/bin/modules/watchdog/wd --stop

To restart the service through the command line:
/usr/local/psa/admin/bin/modules/watchdog/wd --restart

Log files are located in:


/usr/local/psa/var/modules/watchdog/log/wdcollect.log

/usr/local/psa/var/modules/watchdog/log/monit.log Configuration files are
accessible at:


/usr/local/psa/etc/modules/watchdog/monitrc



/usr/local/psa/etc/modules/watchdog/wdcollect.inc.php

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70

System Maintenance

Watchdog (rkhunter)
Log is located in:
/var/log/rkhunter.log
The configuration file is accessible at:
/usr/local/psa/etc/modules/watchdog/rkhunter.conf

Apache
To start the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/httpd start

To stop the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/httpd stop

To restart the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/httpd restart

Log files are located in:


/var/log/httpd/

/var/www/vhosts//statistics/logs/ Configuration files are
accessible at:


/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf



/etc/httpd/conf.d/



/var/www/vhosts//conf/httpd.include

Mailman
To start the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/mailman start

To stop the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/mailman stop

To restart the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/mailman restart

Log files are located in:
/var/log/mailman/
Configuration files are accessible at:


/etc/httpd/conf.d/mailman.conf



/usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/mm_cfg.py

System Maintenance



/etc/mailman/sitelist.cfg

AWstats
To start the service through the command line:
/usr/local/psa/bin/sw-engine-pleskrun
/usr/local/psa/admin/plib/DailyMaintainance/script.php

Configuration files are accessible at:
/usr/local/psa/etc/awstats/

Webalizer
To start the service through the command line:
/usr/local/psa/bin/sw-engine-pleskrun
/usr/local/psa/admin/plib/DailyMaintainance/script.php

Configuration files are accessible at:
/var/www/vhosts//conf/webalizer.conf

Backup Manager
Backup logs are located in:


/usr/local/psa/PMM/sessions//psadump.log



/usr/local/psa/PMM/sessions//migration.log



/usr/local/psa/PMM/logs/migration.log

/usr/local/psa/PMM/logs/pmmcli.log Restore logs are located in:


/usr/local/psa/PMM/rsessions//conflicts.log



/usr/local/psa/PMM/rsessions//migration.log



/usr/local/psa/PMM/logs/migration.log

/usr/local/psa/PMM/logs/pmmcli.log The configuration file is accessible at:
/etc/psa/psa.conf

Plesk Migration Manager
Migration logs are located in:


/usr/local/psa/PMM/msessions//migration.log



/usr/local/psa/PMM/rsessions//migration.log



/usr/local/psa/PMM/rsessions//conflicts.log



/usr/local/psa/PMM/logs/migration.log

71

72

System Maintenance



/usr/local/psa/PMM/logs/pmmcli.log



/usr/local/psa/PMM/logs/migration_handler.log

Horde
Log is located in:
/var/log/psa-horde/psa-horde.log
Configuration files are accessible at:




Apache configuration


/etc/httpd/conf.d/zzz_horde_vhost.conf



/etc/psa-webmail/horde/conf.d/

Horde configuration:
/etc/psa-webmail/horde/

Atmail
Log files are located in:
/var/log/atmail/
Configuration files are accessible at:




Apache configuration


/etc/httpd/conf.d/zzz_atmail_vhost.conf



/etc/psa-webmail/atmail/conf.d/

Atmail configuration:


/etc/psa-webmail/atmail/atmail.conf



/var/www/atmail/libs/Atmail/Config.php

psa-logrotate
To start the service through the command line:
/usr/local/psa/bin/sw-engine-pleskrun
/usr/local/psa/admin/plib/DailyMaintainance/script.php

Configuration files are accessible at:


/usr/local/psa/etc/logrotate.conf



/usr/local/psa/etc/logrotate.d/

System Maintenance

Samba
To start the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/smb start

To stop the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/smb stop

To restart the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/smb restart

Log files are located in:
/var/log/samba/
Configuration files are accessible at:


/etc/samba/smb.conf



/etc/samba/smb.conf.include

psa-firewall
To start the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/psa-firewall start

To stop the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/psa-firewall stop

To restart the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/psa-firewall restart

Configuration files are accessible at:


/usr/local/psa/var/modules/firewall/firewall-active.sh



/usr/local/psa/var/modules/firewall/firewall-emergency.sh



/usr/local/psa/var/modules/firewall/firewall-new.sh

psa-firewall (IP forwarding)
To start the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/psa-firewall-forward start

To stop the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/psa-firewall-forward stop

To restart the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/psa-firewall-forward restart

Configuration files are accessible at:


/usr/local/psa/var/modules/firewall/ip_forward.active



/usr/local/psa/var/modules/firewall/ip_forward.saved

73

74

System Maintenance

psa-vpn
To start the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/smb start

To stop the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/smb stop

To restart the service through the command line:
/etc/init.d/smb restart

The configuration file is accessible at:
/usr/local/psa/var/modules/vpn/openvpn.conf

Moving the Panel GUI to a Separate IP
Address
By default, the Panel GUI can work on all IP addresses available on the Panel server (from
the server’s IP pool). You may want to allow access to the Panel GUI only from the local
network. For that, you should move the GUI to an internal IP address.
To move Panel GUI to a separate IP address, in the configuration file /etc/sw-cpserver/conf.d/plesk.conf, replace the lines
listen 8443 ssl
listen 8880;

with the lines
listen SPECIFIC_SERVER_IP:8443 ssl
listen SPECIFIC_SERVER_IP:8880;

where SPECIFIC_SERVER_IP is the new IP address that you want to use for the Panel GUI.
Do not change the ports.

CHAPTER 5

Backing Up, Restoring, and Migrating
Data
This chapter describes how to back up and restore data by means of the command-line
utilities pleskbackup and pleskrestore, and introduces the tools for migrating
hosted data between servers.
Backing up by means of the pleskbackup utility is done by issuing a command that
specifies the objects to be backed up. The utility creates a backup archive containing
settings and content. You can then perform a full or a selective restoration of data, and
specify how to resolve possible conflicts that might occur.

In this chapter:
Backing Up Data ............................................................................................... 76
Restoring Data .................................................................................................. 96
Migrating and Transferring Data ........................................................................ 127

76

Backing Up, Restoring, and Migrating Data

Backing Up Data
To perform a backup of Panel hosting data, you need to execute the pleskbackup utility
command that does the following:
1. Defines the data that need to be backed up.
2. Defines the way the backup process will be performed.
3. Defines properties of the files that will be contained in the backup.
4. Defines options for exporting the backup as a single file.
Note: Only the first component is obligatory; the others are optional.
The following sections explain the meaning and implementation of each component in detail.
The pleskbackup utility is located in $PRODUCT_ROOT_D/bin/pleskbackup where the
$PRODUCT_ROOT_D is /usr/local/psa for RPM-based systems or /opt/psa on DEBbased systems.
To see a complete list of the pleskbackup commands and options, refer to the section
Backup Utility Commands and Options (on page 92).
If the command execution succeeds, a backup is created in the default server backup
location, or is exported to a file if exporting options were specified. For details on exporting
options, refer to the section Exporting Backup Files (on page 88). If the command execution
fails, a backup is not created.
You can perform advanced configuration of the backup operation through the file
$PRODUCT_ROOT_D/admin/share/pmmcli/pmmcli-rc. For more details, refer to the
section Defining How the Backup Process Is Performed (on page 90).
If a backup process fails, you can use its logs for troubleshooting. Each backup process's
logs are stored in $PRODUCT_ROOT_D/PMM/logs/backup-YYYY-MM-DD-hh-mm-nnn/,
where YYYY-MM-DD-hh-mm is the date and time when the backup was performed and nnn
is a randomly generated number.

Next in this section:
Backup Objects: Hierarchy and Volume ............................................................ 77
Specifying Data for Backing Up ......................................................................... 80
Defining Properties of Files That Compose the Backup ..................................... 86
Exporting Backup Files ...................................................................................... 88
Defining How the Backup Process Is Performed ............................................... 90
Backup Utility Commands and Options ............................................................. 92

Backing Up, Restoring, and Migrating Data

77

Backup Objects: Hierarchy and Volume
Panel provides opportunities for backing up and restoring nearly all hosting data, which
includes main Panel objects: administrator account, settings for Panel-managed services,
reseller accounts, customer accounts, subscriptions, websites, databases and mail accounts.
These backup objects are organized into a hierarchy where parent object is always an owner
of its children. The hierarchy comprises of four levels: server, resellers, customers and
subscriptions. The levels are such that a higher level includes objects on the lower levels but
a lower level is completely separated from the higher objects.

You can create either a full or a partial backup. A full backup is the highest-level backup and
includes all data related to a Panel installation. A partial backup includes only the desired
Panel objects of any of the levels. For information on available options when creating a
partial backup, refer to the section Specifying Data for Backing Up (on page 80).
Restoring a backup, in turn, can also be either full or partial. Full restoration recovers all data
contained in a backup, and partial recovers part of this data. For information on available
options when restoring data from backups, refer to the Defining Objects for Restoration (on page
97) section.
Each backup object includes the following:


Configuration defines the properties of the backup object and its descendants.



Content contains binary data related only to the backup object (website content and
content of mailboxes).

This table shows what data (configuration and content) are related to each backup object.
Backup Object
Type

Configuration

Content

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Backup Object
Type

Configuration

Content

server

This backup level includes the following:

License keys for Panel,
virtual host templates,
website content, error
documents, log files, and
content of mailboxes.

reseller



Administrator information.



Presence Builder settings.



SSO settings.



IP addresses.



Database server settings.



DNS settings.



Mail server settings.



Antivirus and spam protection settings.



SSL certificates.



Reseller plans, hosting plans, and add-on
plans.



Information about administrator's subscriptions,
reseller accounts, customer accounts and
websites.



Information about user roles.



Information about auxiliary users who can
access Control Panel.



Information about mail accounts and individual
settings for protection from spam and viruses .



Site isolation settings.



Settings for notification on system events.

This backup level includes the following:


Reseller information.



Reseller's hosting plans.



Resource allotments and permissions for
operations in Panel.



Allocated IP addresses.



Information about customer accounts,
subscriptions, and websites with DNS settings.



Information about user roles.



Information about auxiliary users who can
access Control Panel.



Information about mail accounts and individual
settings for protection from spam and viruses.

Website content, error
documents, log files,
content of mailboxes.

Backing Up, Restoring, and Migrating Data
Backup Object
Type

Configuration

Content

customer

This backup level includes the following:

Website content, error
documents, log files,
content of mailboxes.



Customer information.



Hosting plans to which the customer is
subscribed.



Resource allotments and permissions for
operations in Control Panel.



IP addresses used by customer's
subscriptions.



Information about websites with DNS settings.



Information about user roles.



Information about auxiliary users who can
access Control Panel.



Information about mail accounts and individual
settings for protection from spam and viruses.

subscription This backup level includes the following:


Website content, error
documents, log files,
Information about a subscription, its owner and
content of mailboxes.
associated hosting plan.



IP addresses allocated to the subscription.



Resource allotments and permissions for
operations in Control Panel.



Information about websites with DNS settings.



Information about mail accounts and individual
settings for protection from spam and viruses.

79

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Specifying Data for Backing Up
Defining data that should be backed up includes the following:
1. Defining the backup level and, unless it is the server level, optionally, selecting which
resellers, customers, or subscriptions should be backed up.
2. (Optional). Defining which resellers, customers, or subscriptions should be excluded from
the backup.
3. (Optional). Restricting backup to either only mail content, web hosting content, or their
configuration.
4. (Optional). Specifying that log files are excluded from backup.
Generally speaking, the data that can be backed up with one call of the pleskbackup utility
are represented by any single cell of the following table.
(All)

Only web hosting
settings

Only mail
option: --only-mail

option: --onlyhosting

(All) Only
(All)
configuration
option: -c

Server

(All)

command:

Excluding resellers

server

options:
--excludereseller or
--excludereseller-file

Excluding customers
options:
--exclude-client
or
--excludeclient-file

Excluding
subscriptions
options:
--exclude-domain
or
--excludedomain-file

Only
(All)
configuration

Only
configuration

option: -c

option: -c

Backing Up, Restoring, and Migrating Data

All or selected (All) / (All selected)
resellers
Excluding resellers
command:
resellersname

options:

or

--excludereseller or

resellersid

--excludereseller-file

Excluding customers
options:
--exclude-client
or
--excludeclient-file

Excluding
subscriptions
options:
--exclude-domain
or
--excludedomain-file

All or selected (All) / (All selected)
customers
Excluding customers
command:

clientsname
or
clients-id

options:
--exclude-client
or
--excludeclient-file

Excluding
subscriptions
options:
--exclude-domain
or
--excludedomain-file

Example 1
Example 1*

81

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All or selected (All) / (All selected)
subscriptions
command:
domainsname
or

domainsid

Excluding
subscriptions
options:
--exclude-domain
or
--excludedomain-file

Exampl
e2

Backing Up, Restoring, and Migrating Data

83

Example 1
With one call of pleskbackup, you can back up hosting data for several resellers (rows 5
or 6 in the table, depending on what is more convenient: to list resellers that should be
included or those to be excluded) and restricting the backup data to configuration of web
hosting on sites owned by the resellers or their customers (column 4 in the table).
To back up website hosting configuration of resellers with usernames reseller1 and
reseller2, issue the following command:
pleskbackup resellers-name "reseller1 reseller2" --only-hosting -c

Example 2
With one call of pleskbackup, you can back up the mail configuration and content of mail
accounts (column 5) for all subscriptions existing on the server (row 12).
To back up mail accounts with messages for all subscriptions:
pleskbackup domains-name --only-mail

The rest of this section explains each option in detail and provides examples of commands.

Defining backup level and selecting objects
To define the backup level and select backup objects, the commands of the pleskbackup
utility are used.
If performing a selective backup, resellers, customers or subscriptions selected for the
backup should be specified by their identifiers which are either usernames or IDs. The
specification can be done in one of the following two ways:


Command line specification. The backup command takes object identifiers as arguments
separated with spaces.



File specification. The backup command takes the --from-file option which specifies
the file where the identifiers of objects are listed. The file must be in plain text format, and
object identifiers are separated by line breaks (i.e., one identifier per line).
Note: If a command contains both specifications, file specification is used and the
command line specification is ignored.

 To back up all data related to Panel installation:
pleskbackup server

 To back up all resellers, customers, or subscriptions:
pleskbackup -

For example, to back up all customer accounts:
pleskbackup clients-name

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Backing Up, Restoring, and Migrating Data

or
pleskbackup clients-id

 To back up several resellers, customers, or subscriptions defined in the
command line:
pleskbackup - [
 [
 ... []]

For example, to back up three resellers defined in the command line:
pleskbackup resellers-name "johndoe janedoe josephine"

 To back up several resellers, customers, or subscriptions listed in a file:
pleskbackup - --from-file=

For example,
pleskbackup resellers-name --from-file="etc/backup lists/backup"

Defining which objects should be excluded
Objects that should be excluded from the backup are specified by their usernames (reseller,
customer accounts) or domain names (subscriptions). This can be done as follows:


Command line specification. The backup command takes objects identifiers as values of
the --exclude- option separated by commas.



File specification. The backup command takes the objects identifiers from the file
specified by the --exclude--file option. The file
must be in plain text format, and object identifiers are separated by line breaks (that is,
one identifier per line).
Note: It is acceptable to use both specifications in one command. In such a case, all
specified objects are excluded from the backup.

 To back up all reseller accounts except for several selected resellers:
pleskbackup resellers-name --exclude-reseller=,[,]

or
pleskbackup resellers-name --exclude-reseller-file=

For example,
pleskbackup --resellers-name --exclude-reseller=johndoe,janedoe

or
pleskbackup --resellers-name --exclude-reseller-file="etc/backup
lists/backup"

 To back up a selected reseller without several subscriptions belonging to them
or their customers:
pleskbackup --resellers-name  --excludedomain=,,

Backing Up, Restoring, and Migrating Data

85

or
pleskbackup --resellers-name  --exclude-domain-file=

For example,
pleskbackup resellers-name johndoe --excludedomain=example.com,example.net,example.org

or
pleskbackup resellers-name johndoe --exclude-domain-file="etc/backup
lists/backup"

Restricting backup to only mail content, only hosting content, or only their
configuration
The amount of backup data can be further narrowed to backing up either mail or physical
hosting content and configuration by using the --only-mail or --only-hosting options,
respectively.
Specifying the --only-hosting option results in backing up only website-specific data
which includes the following, for each domain with physical hosting:


website content (including protected directories, web users, MIME types)





web hosting configuration (including settings of anonymous FTP, log rotation, hotlink
protection, shared SSL, web users)
installed site applications
databases



subdomains

Specifying the --only-mail option results in backing up only mail-specific data that
includes the following:




if used for the partial backup, for each domain included in the backup:


configuration of per-subscription mail settings



mail accounts



mailing lists

if used for the full backup, in addition to previous:


RBL protection settings



ACL white and black list configurations

The amount of backup data can also be narrowed in another way: by specifying that only
configurations of the selected objects should be backed up. This specification is made by
using the --only-configuration option.
Such backups are useful when the objects content is backed up by a third-party system.

 To back up mail configuration on subscriptions belonging to a customer:
pleskbackup clients-  --only-mail --configuration

For example,
pleskbackup clients-id 42 --only-mail --configuration

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 To back up websites content and hosting configuration on subscriptions
belonging to all resellers:
pleskbackup resellers-id --only-hosting

Excluding log files from back up
If Panel's log files related to the hosted objects are not required to be backed up, they can be
excluded from the backup by using the --skip-logs option.

 To back up the Panel configuration without log files:
pleskbackup server -c --skip-logs

Defining Properties of Files That Compose the Backup
Defining the properties of the files that will be contained in the backup includes the following:
1. Specifying that archives with backup object contents should not be compressed.
2. Specifying that a prefix should be added to the names of the backup files.
3. Specifying that backup files should be split into parts of the specified size.

Specifying that archives with backup object contents should not be compressed
By default, Panel saves backed up content to compressed .zip archives to save disk
space when the backup is stored. However, restoring backups that contain compressed
archives requires almost twice as much disk space as restoring those with uncompressed
files. If you want to create your backups without compression, use the -z option in your
backup command.

Specifying that a prefix should be added to the names of the backup files
In order to better distinguish files that were created during one backup session from another,
pleskbackup adds a prefix to the backup file name. By default, it is backup, so every
backup file name looks like backup_.. The prefix in names of the files
that compose a particular backup can be customized by using the --prefix option. The
option's value will be added as a prefix to the names of files of the created backup.
For example, to create a backup of the server mail configuration so that all files in the backup
have the prefix mail-friday:
pleskbackup server --only-mail --configuration --prefix="friday"

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87

Specifying that backup files should be split into parts of the specified size
The pleskbackup utility is capable of splitting backup files into parts of a particular size,
which is extremely useful in cases when the file size is critical. Such cases could include the
following:


if backups are burnt to DVDs, file size should not exceed approximately 4 Gbytes



if backups are stored on the FAT32 file system, file size should not exceed approximately
4 Gbytes



if backups are stored on FTP, the FTP server may have its own restrictions on the size of
a single file transferred to the server

To make pleskbackup split the backup files to parts of a particular size, use the -s|--split
option and specify the required size as the option value. For details on how to specify the
size, refer to the section Backup Utility Commands and Options (on page 92). The default value
used by pleskbackup if no custom size is specified is 2 Gbytes. The utility numbers file
parts created as a result of a split by adding numerical suffixes to the file names starting from
.1.
For example, to back up a subscription and split backup files into parts of no more than 700
Mbytes:
pleskbackup domains-name example.com --only-hosting --split=700M

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Exporting Backup Files
By default, pleskbackup stores backups in Panel's backup repository located on the server
in /var/lib/psa/dumps/.
Panel is capable of exporting the created backup as a single .zip file in one of the following
ways:


to stdout



to a local file system



to an FTP server

To export the backup as a single file, use the --output-file option. Each particular export
mode requires specific option values.
Important: After a backup is exported, pleskbackup removes it from the Panel's backup
repository.
The exported file can also be created uncompressed and/or split into parts of a particular
size, just like the files forming the backup in the repository (details (on page 86)).

Exporting to stdout
To export a backup as a file to stdout, use the --output-file option with the stdout
value.
For example, to create a backup of a subscription with ID 1 and export it to stdout:
pleskbackup domains-id 1 --output-file stdout

Exporting to a local file system
To export a backup as a file to a local file system, use the --output-file option with a
\ value.
For example, to create a backup of a subscription with ID 1 and export it to the file domain1.tgz
located at /usr/local/irregular-backups/ folder:
pleskbackup domains-id 1 --output-file=/usr/local/irregularbackups/domain1.tgz

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89

Exporting to FTP server
To export a backup as a file to an FTP server, use either of the following options:


--output-file=ftp://:@/



--output-file=ftp:///
--ftp-password=

--ftp-login=

You may want to use a passive mode FTP connection if a firewall prevents the export. For
this, use the --ftp-passive-mode option.
For example, to create backup of a subscription with ID 1 and export it to an FTP server
example.com to the storage/backups/ directory, using johndoe as login and jjFh6gsm as password:
pleskbackup domains-id 1 --outputfile=ftp://johndoe:jjFh6gsm@example.com/storage/backups

or
pleskbackup domains-id 1 --output-file=ftp://example.com/storage/backups -ftp-login=johndoe --ftp-password=jjFh6gsm

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Defining How the Backup Process Is Performed
You can specify the following options for the backup operation:
1. Do not perform the backup if your server does not have specified free disk space.
2. Do not perform the backup if your server does not have enough free disk space to store
the backup content.
3. Temporarily suspend websites during backup.
4. Configure the backup utility to include more details in backup reports.

Specifying disk space requirements for the backup
You can prevent the start of the backup operation if your server has not enough disk space
to complete it. To set the free disk space requirements, change the parameters in the file
$PRODUCT_ROOT_D/admin/share/pmmcli/pmmcli-rc.
There are two ways to prevent the start of the backup operation:


Specify minimal free disk space on your server.
If the server does not have the specified disk space, Panel will not start the backup
operation. Set the minimal free disk space in MB by changing the value of the
FREE_DISK_SPACE parameter. For example, to prevent the backup if free disk space on
the server is less than 100 MB, edit the line in the following way:

FREE_DISK_SPACE 100



Restrict the backup if your server does not have enough free disk space to store the
backup content. If this option is turned on, Panel calculates the future backup size and
compares it with the free disk space on the server. If there is not enough disk space,
Panel will not start the backup operation. Note that this option can significantly increase
the backup time.
To turn this option on, set the CHECK_BACKUP_DISK_SPACE to 1. To turn this option off,
set the parameter to 0:

CHECK_BACKUP_DISK_SPACE 0

Suspending websites
If your backup will include websites, we recommend that you suspend them during the
backup process by using the --suspend option of the backup utility. This will help you avoid
possible errors that may be caused by changes made to the site configuration or content
during the backup.
The suspension is made as short as possible: each site is suspended only for the time it is
being backed up: The site is started automatically as soon as its data are processed.

Backing Up, Restoring, and Migrating Data

Defining level of backup verbosity
There are three levels of backup verbosity:


Low: backup utility writes into a log and displays only general errors, such as syntax
errors (no or wrong command specified, invalid input parameters), runtime errors,
unhandled exceptions, low disk space for backup and so on.



Medium: backup utility writes into a log and displays general errors and information on
backup stages.



High: backup utility writes into a log and displays general errors, information on backup
stages, debug information and messages sent to and received from the backup utility.

The verbose mode of the backup process is defined by the -v option:
Option

Verbosity

Example

no, -v, -vv

Low

To create a complete server backup with a
low level of verbosity on Linux/Unix:

# opt/psa/bin/pleskbackup server -vv
-vvv

Medium

To create a complete server backup with a
medium level of verbosity on Linux/Unix:

# opt/psa/bin/pleskbackup server -vv
-vvvv, vvvvv

High

To create a complete server backup with a
high level of verbosity on Linux/Unix:

# opt/psa/bin/pleskbackup server -vv

 To run a task on creating a complete server backup with a maximum level of
verbosity:
pleskbackup server -vvvvv

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Backup Utility Commands and Options
Location
$PRODUCT_ROOT_D/bin/pleskbackup where the $PRODUCT_ROOT_D is
/usr/local/psa for RPM-based systems or /opt/psa on DEB-based systems.

Usage
pleskbackup  [] []

Commands
Command
server
resellersname

Argument

Description
Backs up whole Plesk server.

[  <...> ]
Windows, enclosed in quotes.
Can be used with the --from-file option. In such
case, resellers specified in the file are backed up and
resellers specified as command arguments are ignored.
If no logins are specified and the -f option is not used,
all resellers are backed up.

resellersid

[  <...> Backs up all data for the resellers specified by IDs.
]
IDs should be separated by spaces, and, if on Windows,
enclosed in quotes.
Can be used with the --from-file option. In such
case, resellers specified in the file are backed up and
resellers specified as command arguments are ignored.
If no IDs are specified and the -f option is not used, all
resellers are backed up.

clientsname

[  <...> ]
Windows, enclosed in quotes.
Can be used with the --from-file option. In such
case, customers specified in the file are backed up and
customers specified as command arguments are ignored.
If no logins are specified and the -f option is not used,
all customers are backed up.

Backing Up, Restoring, and Migrating Data
Command

Argument

Description

clients-id

[  <...> Backs up all data for the customers specified by IDs.
]
IDs should be separated by spaces, and, if on Windows,
enclosed in quotes.
Can be used with the --from-file option. In such
case, customers specified in the file are backed up and
customers specified as command arguments are ignored.
If no IDs are specified and the -f option is not used, all
customers are backed up.

domainsname

[  Backs up all data for the domains specified by names.
<...> ]
Names should be separated by spaces, and, if on
Windows, enclosed in quotes.
Can be used with the --from-file option. In such
case, domains specified in the file are backed up and
domains specified as command arguments are ignored.
If no names are specified and the -f option is not used,
all domains are backed up.

domains-id

[  <...> Backs up all data for the domains specified by IDs.
]
IDs should be separated by spaces, and, if on Windows,
enclosed in quotes.
Can be used with the --from-file option. In such
case, domains specified in the file are backed up and
domains specified as command arguments are ignored.
If no IDs are specified and the -f option is not used, all
domains are backed up.

--help

Displays help on the utility usage.

Exclude Options
Option

Description

--excludeSkips resellers with the specified logins during backup.
reseller[=,,..
.]
--exclude-resellerfile[=]

Skips resellers listed in the specified file during backup.

--excludeSkips customers with the specified logins during backup.
client=[,,...]
--exclude-client-file=

Skips customers listed in the specified file during backup.

--excludedomain[=,,...]

Skips domain with the specified names during backup.

--exclude-domain-file=

Skips domains listed in the specified file during backup.

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General Options
Option

Description

-v|--verbose

Shows more information about the backup process. Multiple -v
options increase verbosity. For the maximum verbosity level, define 5
options.

-c|--configuration

Backs up only configurations of Plesk objects, excluding their content.

Splits the backup files into parts of the specified size. The parts are
-s|-split[=[K|M| numbered by appending numerical suffixes starting with .1.
G]]
Size is specified in Kbytes, Mbytes or Gbytes. If none is defined, size
is interpreted as being in bytes.
If no argument is specified, a default value of 2 Gbytes is used.
-z|--no-gzip

Sets that object content is archived without compressing.

--only-mail

Backs up only mail configuration and content.
When used with the resellers|clients|domains-login|id
commands, backs up configuration of domain-level mail system, and
content and configuration of mail accounts.
When used with the server command, also backs up server-wide
mail configuration.
Cannot be used with the --only-hosting option.

--only-hosting

Backs up only physical hosting configuration and Web site content,
including site applications, databases and subdomains.
Cannot be used with the --only-mail option.

--suspend

Suspends domains during backup operation.

-f| --from-file= Backs up resellers|customers|domains listed in the specified file,
ignoring those specified in the command line as arguments.
The file should be in plain text format and should contain a list of
resellers|customers|domains, one per line.
Used only with the resellers-name, resellers-id, clientsname, clients-id, domains-name, domains-id commands.
Depending on the command, resellers|customers|domains are listed
in the file by either logins or IDs.
--skip-logs

Sets that log files are not saved to backup.

--prefix=

Adds a specified prefix to the backup file names.
Used to customize backup file name which is created with the backup
prefix by default.

Backing Up, Restoring, and Migrating Data

FTP Options
Option

Description

--ftplogin=

Specifies FTP login that will be used for uploading backup file to the
FTP server.

--ftppassword=

Specifies password that will be used for uploading backup file to the
FTP server.

--ftp-passive-mode

Specifies that a passive mode FTP connection should be used.

Output File Option
Option

Description

--output-file

Exports backup as a single file to stdout and removes
backup from Plesk repository.

--outputfile=

Exports backup as a single file with the specified name to
a local file system and removes backup from Plesk
repository.

--outputExports backup as a single file to the specified FTP
file=[:]@]/>
The FTP_PASSWORD environment variable can be used
for setting a password.
The --ftp-login and --ftp-password FTP options
can be used for setting login and password.

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Restoring Data
To perform restoration of Panel hosting data, you should execute the pleskrestore utility
command that does the following:
1. Defines the Panel objects to be restored.
2. Defines how the restore process will be performed.
3. Defines conflict resolution rules and policies.
The following sections explain each component in detail.
The pleskrestore utility is located in $PRODUCT_ROOT_D/bin/pleskbackup where the
$PRODUCT_ROOT_D is /usr/local/psa for RPM-based systems or /opt/psa on DEBbased systems.
To see a list of the pleskrestore commands and options, refer to the section Restoration
Utility Commands and Options (on page 126).
If a restoration process fails, you can use its logs for troubleshooting. Each restoration
process's logs are stored in $PRODUCT_ROOT_D/PMM/logs/restore-YYYY-MM-DD-hhmm-nnn/, where YYYY-MM-DD-hh-mm is the date and time when the restoration was
performed and nnn is a randomly generated number.

Next in this section:
Defining Objects for Restoration ........................................................................ 97
Defining How the Restore Process is Performed ............................................... 103
Conflict Resolution Rules and Policies .............................................................. 104
Restoration Utility Commands and Options ....................................................... 126

Backing Up, Restoring, and Migrating Data

97

Defining Objects for Restoration
Defining objects for restoration includes the following:
1. Specifying a source backup file.
2. Defining the level of restored objects.
3. Applying a filter on the specified level.

Generally speaking, the data that can be restored with one call of the pleskrestore utility
are represented by any cell in the following table.

Restoration levels specified with the -level option
Server

Resellers

Customers
Selecte
d with
the filter
option

.xml |
zip | tar

.xml |
zip | tar

Backup
file
.xml
| zip | tar

.x
ml | zip | tar

Full
All
Selecte
restoratio reseller
d
n
accounts reseller
account
s

Full
restoratio
n of a
reseller
account

Subscriptions
Selected
with the filter option

Selected
with the filter option

All
customer
accounts
belonging
to
administrat
or

Selected
customer
accounts
belonging
to
administrat
or

All
subscriptio
ns
belonging
to
administrat
or

Selected
subscriptio
ns
belonging
to
administrat
or

All
customer
accounts
belonging
to reseller

Selected
customer
accounts
belonging
to reseller

All
subscriptio
ns
belonging
to reseller

Selected
subscriptio
ns
belonging
to reseller

All
subscriptio
ns
belonging
to customer

Selected
subscriptio
ns
belonging
to customer

Full
restoration
of a
customer
account

Full
restoration
of a
subscriptio
n

98

Backing Up, Restoring, and Migrating Data

Specifying a source backup file
The source backup file defined for restoration can be of one of the following types:


.xml - backup metadata file, when restoring from backup located in Panel's
repository.



. - archived backup file, when restoring from an exported backup.

For example, to restore the whole server backup, you choose a /.xml file, or an exported server backup file. To restore a client belonging
to a reseller, you choose a /resellers//clients//.xml file.

Defining level of restored objects
Defining the level of restored objects allows you to narrow the amount of restored data
according to your needs. For example, you may want to restore only subscriptions which
belong to a customer or a reseller, skipping all other data not related to subscriptions.
To define the level of restored objects, use the -level option with an appropriate value. The
option is required, so in cases when you do not need any narrowing but just wish to restore
all data from a backup, define the level equal to the level of the file.

 To restore entire server:
pleskrestore restore /.xml -level server

Note: When the whole server backup is restored, license keys are not restored by default. To
restore license keys along with other server content, use the -license option in your
restore command.

 To restore entire server with license keys:
pleskrestore --restore /.xml -level server
-license

 To restore all domains belonging to a reseller:
pleskrestore --restore /resellers//.xml -level domains

 To restore all reseller accounts:
pleskrestore --restore /.xml -level
resellers

Backing Up, Restoring, and Migrating Data

99

Applying filter to the specified level
To perform a more selective restore, use a filter (the -filter option) which selects
particular objects of the specified level (resellers, customers, subscriptions) to be restored.
The objects are specified by their names, which are domain names for subscriptions, and
usernames for resellers and customers. The specification can be done as follows:


Command line specification. The restore command takes object identifiers as values of
the -filter option defined in the following string:
list:,,...,.



File specification. The restore command takes the objects identifiers from the file
specified as an argument of the -filter option. The file must be in plain text format,
and object identifiers are separated by line breaks (that is, one identifier per line).

 To restore two resellers from a server backup:
pleskrestore --restore /.xml -level
resellers -filter list:JohnDoe,JaneDoe

or
pleskrestore --restore /.zip -level
resellers -filter list:JohnDoe,JaneDoe

 To restore two subscriptions owned by the server administrator:
pleskrestore --restore /.xml -level domains
-filter list:example.com,sample.org

 To restore several subscriptions of a customer defined in a file:
pleskrestore --restore /resellers/SandyLee/clients/JaneDow/.xml -level domains filter /restore-domains.txt

Next in this section:
Backup File Structure ........................................................................................ 99

100

Backing Up, Restoring, and Migrating Data

Backup File Structure
By default, all backups are created in a backup repository located on the Panel-managed
server: in a repository specified by the DUMP_D variable defined in the
/etc/psa/psa.conf configuration file
The repository is structured as follows, starting with the content of the repository root folder
(we omit auxiliary files and folders which are irrelevant for backing up and restoring Panel
data using pleskbackup and pleskrestore utilities).
.xml

Metadata files of full and server-level
backups, one per backup, describe
configuration and content of server,
admin, and all their descendants.

.

Archives with content of server and
admin.

clients/

Directory containing the following
backup data:


clients owned by admin or with no
owner



objects owned by the clients

Organization of the directory is the
same as that of
/resellers//clients/.
domains/

Directory containing the following
backup data:


domains owned by admin or with
no owner



objects owned by the domains

Organization of the directory is the
same as that of
/resellers//clients//domains.
resellers/

/

Directory containing the following
backup data:


resellers



objects owned by the resellers

Directories containing backup data of
particular resellers, one reseller per
directory, and the objects owned by
them.
The reseller ID stands for the
reseller login name.

Backing Up, Restoring, and Migrating Data
.xml

Metadata files of the reseller backups,
one file per backup, describe
configuration and content of the reseller
and the objects they own.

.

Archives with the reseller content.

domains/

Directory containing the following
backup data:


domains owned by the reseller



objects owned by the domains

Organization of the directory is the
same as that of
/resellers//clients//domains/.
clients/

Directory containing the following
backup data:

/



clients owned by the reseller



objects owned by the clients

Directories containing backup data of
particular clients, one client per
directory, and the objects owned by
them.
The client ID stands for the client
login name.

.xml

Metadata files of the client backups,
one file per backup, describe
configuration and content of the client
and the objects he owns.

.

Archives with the client content.

domains/

 /

Directory containing the following
backup data:


domains owned by the client



objects owned by the domains

Directories containing backup data of
particular domains, one domain per
directory, and the objects owned by
them.
The domain ID is omitted if the domain
IDN is less than 47 symbols.

.xml

Metadata files of the domain backups,
one file per backup, describe
configuration and content of the domain
and the objects it owns.



Other files and folders which contain
domain contents, and its children
contents and configurations.

101

102

Backing Up, Restoring, and Migrating Data

Files of each backup are placed in the repository folders according to the described
structure.
f a partial backup is created, its files will be placed according to the location of the backup
objects in the hierarchy. For example, if backing up domain example.com owned by reseller
JaneDoe, its files will be located in the /resellers/JaneDoe/domains/example.com/ folder. If backing up
reseller, JohnDoe, who owns a domain joe.info and has one client, DukeNukem, who owns
domain sample.org, the backup files will be located in the following folders:
1. /resellers/JohnDoe/
2. /resellers/JohnDoe/domains/joe.info/
3. /resellers/JohnDoe/clients/DukeNukem/
4. /resellers/JohnDoe/clients/DukeNukem/domains/sample.org
/
To distinguish files belonging to different backups of the same object, a specific prefix and
suffix are added to the file names:


the backup is added by default, and, if you like, you can change it to your own on a perbackup basis



a suffix designating the backup creation date is always added to each backup file, and
the date format is . For example, the files of a backup created on 6 April
2011, 8:58 PM will have the suffix 1104062058.

Panel is capable of exporting a backup as a single .tgz file. Each archive has the same
structure as the repository, the only difference is that there is only one .xml file on
each level.
If a partial backup is exported, the resulting file structure is reduced from the top so that the
highest level corresponds to the level of the highest backup object. For example, if a backup
of a single customer (called, for example, SandyLee) is exported, the resulting file will have
the following structure:
zip {


.xml



.zip



domains/


subscription1/


}

...



subscription_N/



...

Backing Up, Restoring, and Migrating Data

103

Defining How the Restore Process is Performed
When restoring data, you can also do the following:
1. Temporarily suspend websites during restoration.
2. Configure the restoration utility to include more details in backup reports.
3. Configure the restoration utility to restore files even if they do not have a valid signature.

Suspending Websites
If you are going to restore websites, we recommend that you suspend them during the
restoration by using the -suspend option. This will help you avoid possible errors in the
restored sites that may be caused by changes made to the site configuration or content
during the restoration.
The suspension is made as short as possible: each site is suspended only for the time it is
being restored: The site is started automatically as soon as the data are processed.

Defining Level of Restore Verbosity
pleskrestore works in one of the following verbosity modes:
1. Non-verbose mode. Default mode. The minimum level, only general errors are displayed,
sauc as, syntax errors (no or wrong command specified, invalid input parameters),
runtime errors and unhandled exceptions, and so on.
2. Verbose mode. Restore runs with verbosity level which additionally includes deployer
errors, information about conflicts (read about restore conflicts in the section Conflict
Resolution Rules and Policies (on page 104)), and so on. Enabled by adding the -verbose
option to the pleskrestore command.

Restoring Backups Without Valid Signatures
When you attempt to restore a backup file by means of the pleskrestore utility, Panel
checks the file and does not restore it if any of the following problems are found:


The file is corrupted.



The file was modified manually after downloading from the server.



The file was created on another server.



The file was created in a Panel version earlier than 11.5.
Note: Actually, files created in earlier Panel versions are not a problem. Panel marks
such backups as problematic because they lack backup signatures. A backup signature,
introduced in Panel 11.5, enables Panel to check backups.

To skip checking and restore a backup regardless of potential problems, use the -ignoresign option.

104

Backing Up, Restoring, and Migrating Data

Panel administrators can also restore backups with problems is through the Panel GUI by
selecting the corresponding option on the Tools & Settings > Backup Manager > 
page. Customers and resellers are not allowed to restore such backups by default. However,
you can allow all users to restore any backups regardless of potential problems. To do this,
add the following lines to the /usr/local/psa/admin/conf/panel.ini configuration
file:
[pmm]
allowRestoreModifiedDumps = on

To return to the default restrictions, remove these lines or change the second line to the
following:
allowRestoreModifiedDumps = off

Conflict Resolution Rules and Policies
Conflict is a situation when settings in a backup and settings in a destination Panel are such
that restoring a backup object leads to an error or unpredictable Panel behavior.

Types of Conflicts
The restoration process can encounter several types of conflicts, as follows:






Timing conflicts. An object being restored might exist in the system and its last
modification date might be more recent than the date of backup. Or an object could be
deleted from the system later than the backup was created.
Resource usage conflicts. There are two groups of resource usage conflicts:


Common resource usage conflict: The total amount of measurable resources after
restoration might appear to be over the limit for this particular user (e.g., disk space
limit).



Unique resource usage conflict: An object being restored requires a unique
resource which is already being used by another object in the system or does not
exist (e.g., domain).

Configuration conflicts. It might happen that the configuration being restored is not
enabled on the destination server. Two situations can arise here:


Configuration options are not enabled for the domain.



Required configuration options are not available (e.g., site applications are not
available for the customer, database server is not configured on the host, IP address
is not allocated to the reseller, etc.)

Backing Up, Restoring, and Migrating Data

105

Conflict Resolutions
The following conflict resolutions options are possible:









Overwrite. Means that all objects will be restored from the backup files regardless of
their current presence in the system. Overwrite works as follows:


If an object/setting from backup does not exist in Panel, it is created.



If an object/setting from backup exists in Panel, it replaces the existing object/setting.



If an object/setting exists in Panel but is missed in a backup, the existing object/setting
remains.

Proceed with current. Means that objects that are currently present in the system will
not be affected by the restoration process. The restoration process will move to the
objects belonging to that one, not touching the object itself.
Do not restore. Means that the objects that are currently present in the system or were
deleted after the backup will not be restored with the lower level objects.
Automatic. Means that configuration option that should be enabled for domain is
enabled automatically.
Overuse. Means that objects are restored even when the resources are overused. Can
be applied only to objects that belong to a reseller who is working in the oversell mode.
Rename. Means that unique resources for the restored domain are reassigned with the
specified name, existing in the system (mapping).

Conflict Resolution Policies and Rules
Depending on the scope of a conflict resolution, we distinguish between conflict resolution
rules and policies:



Rule defines the way a specific single conflict should be resolved.
Policy defines the way all conflicts of a particular type should be resolved.

Conflicts Resolving Mechanism: Default Policies, Custom Policies, and Rules
The restoration utility brings a set of default, hard-coded conflict resolution policies, which are
as follows:


for timing conflicts - Overwrite



for common resource usage conflicts - Overuse



for unique resource usage conflicts - Do not restore



for configuration conflicts - Automatic

The default policies are always applied during restoration and cannot be changed or
overridden.
Applying default policies may not resolve all the conflicts that occur. In such cases, the
person performing the restore should define additionally custom rules and/or policies that
resolve the remaining conflicts. Custom rules and policies are defined in an XML format as
described in the section Resolutions Description Format (on page 108).

106

Backing Up, Restoring, and Migrating Data

A simplified presentation of conflict resolving during restore is as follows:
1. Administrator runs pleskrestore with specific parameters.
2. pleskrestore detects the conflicts that have occurred and resolves them using the
default policies.
3. pleskrestore checks if any conflicts remain unresolved.
If all conflicts are resolved, the restoration continues.
4. pleskrestore stops the restoration and, if run in debug or verbose mode, returns a
detailed description (in XML format) of each remaining conflict.
5. Based on the returned description of the conflicts, the administrator creates a file that
defines a resolution for each conflict (with rules) and/or in bulk (with custom policies).
6. The administrator runs the pleskrestore utility with the --conflicts-resolution
option and the file created in the previous step as its argument.
7. pleskrestore detects the conflicts that have occurred and resolves them using the
default policies.
8. pleskrestore processes the remaining conflicts:
a

pleskrestore applies resolution rules from the file.

b

pleskrestore applies resolution policies from the file to the remaining conflicts.

9. pleskrestore checks whether any conflicts remain unresolved.


If all conflicts are resolved, the restoration continues.



If any conflicts remain unresolved, pleskrestore stops the restoration and, if run in
debug or verbose mode, returns a detailed description (in XML format) of each
remaining conflict.
To have such a dump restored, admin should add resolution rules for each remaining
conflict to the conflict resolution file and repeat the restoration task.

Next in this section:
Custom Conflict Resolutions ............................................................................. 107

Backing Up, Restoring, and Migrating Data

107

Custom Conflict Resolutions
This section describes how to implement custom conflict resolutions during restore.

Next in this section:
Conflict Description Messages .......................................................................... 107
Resolutions Description Format ......................................................................... 108
Samples of Policy Description ........................................................................... 117
Samples of Conflict Resolution With Rules ........................................................ 117

Conflict Description Messages
Conflict descriptions returned by the pleskrestore utility contain message elements
included for GUI generation purposes. Despite the self-explanatory character of XML conflict
descriptions, the values of the message elements may be confusing, so this section
describes the meanings of these messages as they are displayed in Panel GUI.
Value of message element

Message displayed in Panel GUI

backup__restore__object_vhost

Virtual host

backup__restore__object_plesk_admi server administrator
n
backup__restore__conflict_object_n
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