Becoming Familiar with Parallels Plesk Panel

In a typical installation, Panel functionality is divided into two panels - Server Administration Panel to configure and maintain server and Control Panel to manage hosting services on the server. This installation is also know as Control Panel is in Standard mode. This mode is convenient for reselling hosting services by offering subscriptions to service plans. Learn more about service plans in the section Understanding Service Plans and Subscriptions.

Alternatively to Standard mode, you can use Control Panel solely for personal needs like for maintaining a company portal or mail server. If this is your case, you should switch Control Panel to Power User mode. When in this mode, both server administration and hosting services management take place in Control Panel. As this mode does not suppose reselling service to others, it does not provide facilities to manage hosting plans, subscriptions, resellers and customers. Also, as the server administration functions are included into Control Panel in this mode, the Server Administration Panel becomes unavailable.

When Control Panel is in Standard mode, you (as the Panel administrator) can create own hosting accounts (webspaces). If you try to access these accounts, Panel will open them in Power User mode, whereas customer accounts will be opened in standard mode. With this feature, you have the following benefits:

• Quickly access server administration functions when you are in Control Panel.
• Manage accounts on behalf of customers and resellers from standard Control Panel.

The following diagram summarizes the information about Control Panel in Standard mode (A) and in Power User mode (B).

Next in this chapter, we will discuss the panels GUI in detail.

Server Administration Panel

When you log in to Parallels Plesk Panel as administrator, it shows a Home page with a summary on allocated and used resources.

The top banner area provides the following links:

• A link with your name. Click this if you need to update your contact information.
• Log out. This is where you close your session when you have finished working with the Panel.
• Help. This provides context-sensitive help with a search function.

The navigation pane on the left provides access to the following sets of functions:

• Home. This is where you start working with the Panel. Most of the operations you might need to perform are accessible from this area.
• Customers. This is where you perform operations on user accounts. Customers are end users of hosting services; they cannot resell hosting services. You can accomplish the following tasks from this area of the Panel:
  • Create, modify, suspend, activate, and remove user accounts
  • View traffic usage reports
• Resellers. This is where you perform operations on reseller accounts. Resellers can use hosting services and resell the services to end users. Resellers cannot create reseller accounts for other users. You can accomplish the following tasks from this area of the Panel:
  • Create, modify, and remove user accounts for resellers and their customers.
  • View traffic usage reports
• Domains. This is where you can view information about hosted websites and their domain names, and go to the Control Panel for managing them.
• Subscriptions. This is where you manage customer subscriptions to your services. Subscription is a way a customer obtains services and resources provided by a service plan.
• Service Plans. This is where you manage your service plans. Service plan is a set of resources and services provided to hosting service customers by means of subscriptions. There are also service plan add-ons that extend the amount of resources and services provided with a subscription.
• Tools & Utilities. This is where you configure and manage system services, and view resource usage statistics.
• Settings. This is where you configure the global settings related to hosting services and Panel branding.
• Modules. This link is available only on Linux-based hosting servers. Click it to install or manage additional modules that add useful functions to Parallels Plesk Panel. These modules are Firewall, Counter-Strike Game Server, and VPN.
• Profile & Preferences. This is where you set interface language and skin, and update contact information.
• Change Password. This is where you change your password for logging in to the Server Administration Panel as administrator.

Note: The number and location of these icons and links in your Panel depend on the number of available services, installed applications, and functions provided in accordance with your software license. For this reason, some of the functions and items described in this guide might not be available to you. If you want to use the functions that are currently missing in your Panel, then upgrade your software license, install the necessary software packages, or contact your hosting service provider for assistance.

If the Customer and Business Manager component is installed, the navigation pane also includes the following groups of links:

• Business Operations. Manage customer accounts and service subscriptions.
• Business Monitoring. View accounting reports and work with invoices and payments.
• Business Setup. Set up Customer and Business Manager for serving your customers.

To learn more about working with Customer and Business Manager, refer to the chapter Using Integrated Customer and Business Manager.

To see information about a tool or an item on the page, hover the cursor over an item, without clicking it, and a small hover box appears with supplementary information regarding the item being hovered over.

The main working area on the right provides access to the tools available for the current section of the Panel selected in the navigation pane. Additional operations are accessible from the More Actions menus.

To navigate through Parallels Plesk Panel, you can use a path bar: a chain of links that appears in the right part of the screen, below the banner area.

To return to a previous screen, use the shortcuts in the path bar, or the Up Level icon in the upper-right corner of the screen.

To sort a list by a certain parameter in ascending or descending order, click on the parameter's title in the column heading. The order of sorting will be indicated by a small triangle displayed next to the parameter's title.

Control Panel in Standard Mode

Control Panel provides access to the following functions:

• Home. Provides access to the most frequently performed operations. The most part of administrative tasks can be performed using the links on this page:
  • View statistics on resource usage by websites.
  • Host a new website and fill it with content using the integrated SiteBuilder visual editor.
  • Manage files.
  • Secure sites with SSL encryption.
  • Set up e-mail addresses.
  • Manage user roles and user accounts.
  • Select and install applications on websites.
• Users. Provides access to functionality for creating, modifying, deleting user accounts and user roles.
• Mail. Provides access to functionality for creating, modifying, deleting e-mail addresses and mailing lists.
• Websites & Domains. Provides access to functionality for registering domain names, creating, modifying, deleting websites, setting up hosting features, databases, subdomains, domain aliases, viewing website visits statistics, and managing files published at the websites.
• Applications. Provides access to functionality for installing, configuring, and removing web applications that add useful features to your sites, such as blogs, photo galleries, online stores, and other applications.
• Statistics. Provides reports on disk space and traffic used by websites.
• Account. This is where you view information about your hosting package, change your contact information and password for access to the Panel.

Note: The number and location of these icons and links in your Panel depend on the number of available services, installed applications, and functions provided in accordance with your software license. For this reason, some of the functions and items described in this guide might not be available to you. If you want to use the functions that are currently missing in your Panel, then upgrade your software license, install the necessary software packages, or contact your hosting service provider for assistance.

Above the tabs, the following links are located:

• Link with your name. Click this to specify your contact information, e-mail address, and set a new password for accessing the Panel.
• Log out. This closes your session when you have finished working with the Panel.
• Help. View the context-sensitive help articles.

Control Panel in Power User Mode

Control Panel in Power User mode provides access to the following functions:

• Home. Provides access to the most frequently performed operations. The most part of administrative tasks can be performed using the links on this page:
  • View statistics on resource usage by websites.
  • Host a new website and fill it with content using the integrated SiteBuilder visual editor.
  • Manage files.
  • Secure sites with SSL encryption.
  • Set up e-mail addresses.
  • Manage user roles and user accounts.
  • Select and install applications on websites.
• Users. Provides access to functionality for creating, modifying, deleting user accounts and user roles.
• Mail. Provides access to functionality for creating, modifying, deleting e-mail addresses and mailing lists.
• Websites & Domains. Provides access to functionality for registering domain names, creating, modifying, deleting websites, setting up hosting features, databases, subdomains, domain aliases, viewing website visits statistics, and managing files published at the websites.
• Applications. Provides access to functionality for installing, configuring, and removing web applications that add useful features to your sites, such as blogs, photo galleries, online stores, and other applications.
• Statistics. Provides reports on disk space and traffic used by websites.
• Server. Provides controls for setting up the Panel and managing services.
• Webspaces. Provides access to functions for setting up and managing webspaces. Each webspace is associated with one main domain name, one IPv4 and one IPv6 address or either of them, and is suitable for hosting multiple websites. You might want to create separate webspaces for hosting websites with SSL protection on dedicated IP addresses.

Note: The number and location of these icons and links in your panel depend on the number of available services, installed applications, and functions provided in accordance with your software license. For this reason, some of the functions and items described in this guide might not be available to you. If you want to use the functions that are currently missing in your Panel, then upgrade your software license, install the necessary software packages, or contact your hosting service provider for assistance.

Above the tabs, the following links are located:

• Link with your name. Click this to specify your contact information, e-mail address, and set a new password for accessing the Panel.
• Log out. This closes your session when you have finished working with the Panel.
• Help. View the context-sensitive help articles. There is no dedicated guide for this mode; however, when you click this link, the relevant help topics will be shown either from Administrator's Guide or Control Panel User's Guide.

Note: If you do not need functions for reselling shared hosting services and accommodating new resellers and customers, you can switch to Control Panel in Power User mode by running a command-line utility. In this case you will not have access to Server Administration Panel and Control Panel in Standard mode. For details on disabling these panels, see section Using Command Line Utilities > Power User Mode: poweruser Utility of Panel 10.2 Command Line Reference.

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