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Setting Up the Server

To set the global settings for a Linux-based hosting server:

  1. On your Home page, open the Server group title menu, and select Server Settings.
  2. Specify the following:
  3. Click OK.

To set the global settings for a Windows-based hosting server:

  1. On your Home page, open the Server group title menu, and select Server Settings.
  2. Specify the following:
  3. Click OK.

Now, let's set up the DNS service for serving your own domains. Setup of DNS zones for newly added domains is automated: When you add a new domain name to control panel, a zone file is automatically generated for it in accordance with the server-wide DNS zone template and your server is instructed to act as a primary (master) DNS server for the zone. If the DNS service on your Parallels Plesk Panel server will be authoritative for Web sites that you host for your customers, and you do not want to set up your own domain at this moment, skip this procedure and move on to the next procedure for configuring the mail service. However, if you are going to set up in Parallels Plesk Panel a domain name for hosting a Web site for your own organization (let's call this domain "example.com"), follow these steps:

  1. Register your domain name example.com with a domain name registrar (domain name registration authority) of your choice. Provide the registrar with the following information: nameservers ns1.example.com and ns2 example.com, and two IP addresses assigned to your server by your provider.
  2. Log in to Parallels Plesk Panel, and click the Domains shortcut in the navigation pane.
  3. Click Create Domain.
  4. In the Domain name field, leave the WWW box selected, and type your domain name example.com. Having the www alias preceding a domain name will allow users to get to the site no matter what they type in their browsers: www.example.com and example.com will both point to the same site.
  5. From the Assign IP address menu, select the required IP address. You should select a dedicated IP address (not shared among other sites), or, in terms of Parallels Plesk Panel, exclusive IP address to be able to install an authentic digital SSL certificate for securing customers' communications to your hosting server.
  6. In the Use domain template settings menu, leave the default domain value selected. To facilitate setup of new Web sites, the control panel uses settings inherited from domain templates. After your Web site is set up, you can replace the default settings with other settings that suit your needs better.
  7. Under Switch on service, leave the Mail and DNS check boxes selected if e-mail accounts and DNS zones will be served by the mail and DNS services running on this server.
  8. Under Hosting type, select the Web site hosting option to host the Web site on this machine.
  9. Specify the username and password that will be used for uploading site content over FTP.
  10. Click Next >>.
  11. Specify the following settings:
  12. Click Next >>.
  13. Specify the following settings:
  14. Click Finish. You are taken to the domain management screen.
  15. Correct the information in the DNS zone of your domain:
    1. In the Web Site group, click DNS Settings.
    2. Locate the records example.com NS ns.example.com and ns.example.com A <IP address>, select the respective check boxes and click Remove. Now the default records are removed, and you can specify the name servers that you have registered with your registrar.
    3. Click Add Record. In the Record type menu, select the NS value, leave the Enter domain name box blank, and in the Enter nameserver box, type ns1.example.com, then click OK.
    4. Click Add Record. In the Record type menu, select the NS value, leave the Enter domain name box blank, and in the Enter nameserver box, type ns2.example.com, then click OK.
    5. Click Add Record. In the Record type menu, select the A value, in the Enter domain name box, type the ns1 value, and in the Enter IP address box, type the first IP address of your server that you registered with a registrar, then click OK.
    6. Click Add Record. In the Record type menu, select the A value, in the Enter domain name box, type the ns1 value, and in the Enter IP address box, type the second IP address of your server that you registered with a registrar, then click OK.
  16. Specify the correct name servers in the server-wide DNS template:
    1. Click the Home shortcut in the navigation pane and then click DNS Settings. A list of record templates opens.
    2. Locate the records <domain> NS ns.<domain> and ns.<domain> A <IP>, select the respective check boxes and click Remove. Now the default records are removed, and you can specify the name servers that you have registered with your registrar.
    3. Click Add DNS Record. In the Record type menu, select the NS value, leave the Enter domain name box blank, and in the Enter nameserver box, type ns1.example.com, then click OK.

      Click Add DNS Record. In the Record type menu, select the NS value, leave the Enter domain name box blank, and in the Enter nameserver box, type ns2.example.com, then click OK.

Now the server-wide DNS settings are set up properly, your domain example.com is hosted on the server, and you can publish the site content. For instructions on publishing a Web site, refer to the Publishing a Site section of this guide.

Now, let's set up the mail service. Your control panel works in cooperation with mail server software, which provides mail services for your domains. After installation the mail server is configured automatically and is ready to serve, however, we recommend that you review the default settings to ensure that they satisfy your needs:

  1. Click the Home shortcut in the navigation pane and then click Mail Server Settings. The server-wide mail preferences screen will open on the Preferences tab.
  2. If you wish to limit the size of an e-mail message that can be sent through your server, type the desired value in kilobytes into the Maximum message size box, otherwise, leave this field blank.
  3. If you wish to protect your users from dictionary attacks by not allowing them to use simple passwords, select the Check the passwords for mailboxes in the dictionary option.

    A dictionary attack is when someone tries to find out a valid user name and password by running a program that tries different combinations of dictionary words in different languages. Dictionary attacks can be successful because many users choose their passwords carelessly.

    Note for Windows hosting users: To make this function work properly on Windows platforms, make sure that the Password must meet complexity requirements option is switched on in your server's Local Security Policy settings (the option is located in Start > Administrative Tools > Local Security Policy > Account Policies > Password policy).

  4. To protect your server against unauthorized mail relaying or injection of unsolicited bulk mail, select the Enable message submission check box to allow your customers to send e-mail messages through the port 587.

    Also notify your customers that they need to specify in their e-mail programs' settings the port 587 for outgoing SMTP connections, and be sure to allow connections to this port in your firewall settings.

  5. Select the mail relay mode.

    With closed relay the mail server will accept only e-mail addressed to the users who have mailboxes on this server. Your customers will not be able to send any mail through your outgoing SMTP server, therefore, we do not recommend closing mail relay.

    With relay after authorization, only your customers will be able to receive and send e-mail through your mail server. We recommend that you leave the authorization is required option selected, and specify allowed authentication methods:

    There is also an option to allow open relay without authorization, which, by default, is hidden from the user interface. Opening mail relay without authorization is not recommended because it allows spammers to send unsolicited mail through your server. If you want to set the open relay, log in to the server's file system, locate the file root.controls.lock in your Parallels Plesk Panel installation directory (PRODUCT_ROOT_D/var/root.controls.lock on Unix and PRODUCT_DATA_D/var/root.controls.lock on Windows platforms) and remove the line /server/mail.php3:relay_open from this file. The open relay option will show in your control panel.

  6. If you are setting up a Linux-based server, select antivirus and webmail program components that should be available to the users. If you are setting up a Windows-based server, you can select webmail and antivirus later: click Settings in the navigation pane, and then click Select Webmail and Select Antivirus.
  7. Select the mail account name format (available only on Linux hosting).

    Selecting the Use of short and full names is allowed option will allow users to log in to their mail accounts by specifying only the left part of e-mail address before the @ sign (for example, username), or by specifying the full e-mail address (for example, username@your-domain.com).

    To avoid possible authorization problems for e-mail users who reside in different domains but have identical user names and passwords, we recommend that you choose the Only use of full mail account names is allowed option.

    Once you have set your mail server to support only full mail account names, you will not be able to switch back to supporting short account names until you make sure there are no encrypted passwords for mailboxes and user accounts with coinciding user names and passwords residing in different domains.

  8. Click OK to submit any changes.

Set up spam filters. Parallels Plesk Panel supports anti-spam systems, such as SpamAssassin spam filter, and protection systems based on DomainKeys, DNS blackhole lists, and Sender Policy Framework (SPF). This guide covers the setup of SpamAssassin spam filter. For instruction on using DomainKeys, DNS blackhole lists, and Sender Policy Framework, refer to Parallels Plesk Panel 9 Administrator's Guide, section Setting Up Spam Protection.

To set up spam filtering with SpamAssassin:

  1. On your Home page, open the Server group title menu, and select Spam Filter Settings.
  2. To allow server-wide filtering based on the settings you define, select the Switch on server-wide SpamAssassin spam filtering check box.
  3. To let your users set their own spam filtering preferences on a per-mailbox basis, select the Apply individual settings to spam filtering check box.
  4. If you wish to adjust the amount of system resources the spam filter should use (available only for Linux hosting), type the desired value from 1 to 5 into the Maximum number of worker spamd processes to run (1-5) box (1 is the lowest load, and 5 is the highest). We recommend that you use the default value.
  5. If you wish to adjust the spam filter's sensitivity, type the desired value in the The score that a message must receive to qualify as spam box.
  6. SpamAssassin performs a number of different tests on contents and subject line of each message. As a result, each message scores a number of points. The higher the number, the more likely a message is spam. For example, a message containing the text string "BUY VIAGRA AT LOW PRICE!!!" in Subject line and message body scores 8.3 points. By default, the filter sensitivity is set so that all messages that score 7 or more points are classified as spam.
  7. To reduce the load on your Windows server, you can select the Do not filter if mail size exceeds specified size check box and specify the maximum size of the message that the spam filter will test. Recommended mail size limit is 150 - 250 Kbytes, which is usual for mail messages in HTML format with images. The size of the mail is considered critical for filter and server overload when it exceeds 500 Kbytes, which is usual for mail messages containing attachments.
  8. To make sure that the spam filter on your Windows server is not leaving some e-mail messages unchecked (this can happen if the amount of incoming mail is very large), limit the number of e-mail messages that can be checked simultaneously in the Number of threads that spam filter can create field.
  9. Specify how to mark messages recognized as spam.
  10. At the server level, you cannot set the server-wide spam filter to automatically delete spam: you can do it only on a per-mailbox basis. So, for the server-wide policy, you can choose only marking messages as spam: "X-Spam-Flag: YES" and "X-Spam-Status: Yes" headers are added to the message source by default, and if you want, the spam filter will additionally include a specific text string to the beginning of Subject line. To include a desired combination of symbols or words to the message subject, type it into the Add the following text to the beginning of subject of each message recognized as spam box. If you do not want the spam filter to modify message subject, leave this box blank. If you want to include into the subject line the number of points that messages score, type _SCORE_ in this box.
  11. If you use Parallels Plesk Panel for Windows, define the language characteristics of mail that should always pass the filter by specifying trusted languages and locales.
  12. If you do not want your users to receive e-mail from specific domains or individual senders, click the Black List tab, and then add the respective entries to the spam filter's black list:
  13. If you want to be sure that you and your users will not miss e-mail from specific senders, click the White List tab, and then add e-mail addresses or entire domains to the spam filter's white list:
  14. Once finished with setting up the spam filter, click OK.

Now all the incoming mail will be filtered on the server side. By default, spam filter does not delete spam mail, it only adds the "X-Spam-Flag: YES" and "X-Spam-Status: Yes" headers to the message, and "*****SPAM*****" text string to the beginning of Subject line of each message recognized as spam.

If you have enabled the Apply individual settings to spam filtering option, then your users will be able to set their spam filters so as to automatically delete junk mail. They will also be able to set up their personal black and white lists of correspondents that will override the server settings, and teach the spam filter on a per-mailbox basis.

Now let's set up antivirus for protecting your customers' mailboxes from viruses.

To set up antivirus on a Windows-based hosting server:

  1. Click the Settings shortcut in the navigation pane, and then click Select Antivirus.
  2. Select the antivirus program that you want to use and click OK.
  3. Click Up Level, and then click Virus Protection Settings.
  4. From the Server-wide settings menu, select the desired scanning mode.
  5. To allow users to adjust scanning settings for incoming and outgoing mail, select the respective check boxes.
  6. Click OK.

The antivirus is now switched on. It will scan mail and delete all infected messages.

To set up antivirus on a Linux-based hosting server:

  1. Go to Home > Updates.
  2. Click your Parallels Plesk Panel version.
  3. In the list of components, select either Dr.Web antivirus or Kaspersky antivirus.
  4. Click Install.

    After the installation is completed, obtain and install a license key for the selected antivirus program, as described in the following steps.

  5. Go to Home > License Management.
  6. Click Order Control Panel Add-ons. The Parallels online store page listing available add-ons opens in a new browser window.
  7. On this page, select the check box next to the Dr. Web Antivirus or Kaspersky Antivirus item and click ADD TO MY BASKET.
  8. Because Parallels Plesk Panel add-ons are added to the license keys that already exist, the Parallels Plesk Panel Number Checking System page will open. Enter the number of your license key to which you add this feature and click Submit.
  9. In the next steps, indicate the currency, number of keys, provide contact details, billing address, and payment method, and submit the form. You will be notified by e-mail when your order is processed.
  10. When you receive the e-mail notice, return to the License Management screen (Home > License Management) and click Retrieve Keys to retrieve the ordered license key. Parallels Plesk Panel License Manager will retrieve the upgraded license key from the Parallels licensing server and install it to your control panel.
  11. Go to Settings > Virus Protection Settings.
  12. Under Antivirus preferences, select the antivirus you need and click OK.

If you installed Dr.Web, you can switch on antivirus protection only on a per-mailbox basis, and only after you have set up mailboxes. By default, virus definitions are retrieved every 5 hours from Dr.Web site, and this setting is not changeable through the control panel.

For instructions on setting up anti-virus protection for a mailbox, refer to Parallels Plesk Panel 9 Administrator's Guide, section Protecting Mailboxes From Viruses.

If you installed Kaspersky Antivirus, click the Modules shortcut in the navigation pane, click Kaspersky Antivirus, and then click the Server-wide scanning settings tab. If you need further instructions on using Kaspersky antivirus, see Kaspersky Antivirus Module Administrator's Guide at http://www.parallels.com/en/products/plesk/docs/.

Now let's set up e-mail notification. When new user accounts or domains are created in the system, or when disk space and bandwidth allotments are overused, the control panel notifies you and the appropriate users by e-mail. With the default settings, however, domain and web site owners are not notified. We recommend that you enable resource overage notification for domain and Web site owners because they need to know what happens to their domains and Web sites.

The control panel can notify the appropriate users when:

To view or modify the notification system settings:

  1. Go to Home > Notifications.
  2. By selecting the check boxes in the Notifications table, specify the types of control panel users or external e-mail users who should receive notices on events.

    We recommend that you also select all check boxes in the domain administrator column in order to let your resellers' customers know what happens to their Web sites.

  3. To view or edit the default notice text, click the respective icon in the Text column.

    In notices you can use tags that will be replaced with actual data (see the table below).

  4. Specify when to send the user account and domain (Web site) hosting account expiration notices. By default, such notices are sent 10 days in advance. Click OK.

The following table lists the tags (variables) that you can use in notification messages.

Event type

Tags that can be used in notices

The data that tags denote

Creation of a user account

 

<client_contact_name>

<reseller_contact_name>

<user_contact_name>

user's first and last name

<client_login>

<reseller_login>

<user_login>

user name for authorization in the control panel

<password>

user's password for authorization in the control panel

<client_company_name>

<reseller_company_name>

<user_company_name>

company name

<client_cr_date>

<reseller_cr_date>

<user_cr_date>

user account creation date

<client_phone>

<reseller_phone>

<user_phone>

phone number

<client_fax>

<reseller_fax>

<user_fax>

fax number

<client_country>

<reseller_country>

<user_country>

country

<client_state_province>

<reseller_state_province>

<user_state_province>

state or province

<client_city>

<reseller_city>

<user_city>

 

 

city

<client_postal_ZIP_code>

<reseller_postal_ZIP_code>

<user_postal_ZIP_code>

postal or ZIP code

<client_address>

<reseller_address>

<user_address>

address

<client_id>

<reseller_id>

<user_id>

unique identifier assigned by the system

<hostname>

host name for access to control panel

Expiration of a user account

 

<client_login>

<reseller_login>

<user_login>

user name for authorization in the control panel

<client_contact_name>

<reseller_contact_name>

<user_contact_name>

user's first and last name

<client_expiration_date>

<reseller_expiration_date>

<user_expiration_date>

user account expiration date

Addition of a new domain name to the server

 

<domain_name>

domain name

<client_login>

<reseller_login>

<user_login>

user name for authorization in the control panel

<client_contact_name>

<reseller_contact_name>

<user_contact_name>

user's first and last name

<dom_id>

unique identifier assigned by the system

<ip>

IP address the domain is hosted on

Domain (Web site) hosting account expiration

 

<domain_name>

domain name

<client_login>

<reseller_login>

<user_login>

user name for authorization in the control panel

<client_contact_name>

<reseller_contact_name>

<user_contact_name>

user's first and last name

<dom_id>

unique identifier assigned by the system

<domain_expiration_date>

domain hosting account expiration date

Resource overage

 

<domain_name>

domain name

<client_login>

<reseller_login>

<user_login>

user name for authorization in the control panel

<client_contact_name>

<reseller_contact_name>

<user_contact_name>

user's first and last name

<disk_usage>

information about disk space usage

<disk_space_limit>

information about the amount of disk space allocated to the account

<resource_table>

information about all resource limits that were or will soon be reached

<traffic>

information about bandwidth usage

<traffic_limit>

information about the bandwidth amount allotted to the account

Help Desk events

<ticket_id>

trouble ticket identification number automatically assigned by the system

<reporter>

returns user name for requests submitted by resellers or multi-domain customers, a domain name for requests submitted by domain owner, and e-mail address if the request was submitted by e-mail.

<server>

host name

<ticket_comment>

the contents of a ticket, or a comment posted

Now let's obtain and install an authentic digital SSL certificate to secure connections to your control panel.

For security reasons, you can access your control panel only through a secure connection provided by Secure Sockets Layer-enabled hypertext transfer protocol. All data you exchange with the Parallels Plesk Panel-managed server are encrypted, thus preventing interception of sensitive information. The SSL certificate used in the data encryption process is automatically generated and installed on the server during installation of the control panel. This is the so-called self-signed certificate: it is not signed by a recognized certification authority (CA), therefore, upon attempt to connect to your control panel, you and your customers will see warning messages in Web browsers.

To gain customer confidence, you should purchase an SSL certificate from a reputable certification authority, and install it to the control panel.

You can either:

To purchase an SSL certificate from Comodo, GeoTrust, Inc. or GoDaddy through MyPleskCom online store and secure your control panel:

  1. On your Home page, open the Security group title menu, and select SSL Certificates. A list of SSL certificates that you have in your repository will be displayed.
  2. Click Add SSL Certificate.
  3. Specify the certificate properties:
  4. Make sure that all the provided information is correct and accurate, as it will be used to generate your private key.
  5. Click Buy SSL Certificate.

    Your private key and certificate signing request will be generated. Do not delete them. MyPlesk.com login page will open in a new browser window.

  6. Register or log in to an existing MyPlesk.com account and you will be taken step by step through the certificate purchase procedure.
  7. Choose the type of certificate that you wish to purchase.
  8. Click Proceed to Buy and order the certificate. In the Approver E-Mail drop-down box, please select the correct Approver e-mail.

    The approver e-mail is an e-mail address that can confirm that certificate for specific domain name was requested by an authorized person.

  9. Once your certificate request is processed, you will be sent a confirmation e-mail. After you confirm, the certificate will be sent to your e-mail.
  10. When you receive your SSL certificate, save it on your local machine or network.
  11. Return to the SSL Certificates repository (Home > Security group title menu > SSL Certificates).
  12. Click Browse in the middle of the page and navigate to the location of the saved certificate. Select it, and then click Send File. This will upload the certificate to the repository.
  13. Select the check box corresponding to the certificate you just added, and click Secure control panel.

Now you can register the server at MyPlesk.com. My.Plesk.com (MPC) is the Parallels commerce center that you can customize for your clients. Your registration is free with your Parallels Plesk Panel 9 license. Click the Home shortcut in the navigation pane, open the Applications & Services menu, select the Register Your Server option, and follow the directions on MPC. The system creates an administrator's account in the commerce portal for your server. Customize the account to offer any of the services or applications you like. When your customers log in to the system, they become part of your server's account. As your customers become familiar with the portal they can use it to register domains, purchase SSL certificates, and purchase a pre-selected list of applications available for the Parallels Plesk Panel system and their domains. Every time they use the portal for their accounts you enjoy the revenue without the tax or accounting responsibilities. My.Plesk.com gives you a management portal to view your sales and the system accounts and instantly get an update on what your customers are purchasing as well as the amount of revenue you will receive at the end of each month. No headaches, no minimum purchases, no partnership fees, just additional revenue for you to enjoy from your customizable portal.

Now let's set up Help Desk. Help Desk is a convenient way for your customers to reach you when they need your assistance. After you set it up and switch on, the Help Desk becomes accessible to all users who were granted access to control panel, including your resellers, clients, domain owners, and e-mail users. Additionally, you can allow submission of problem reports by e-mail.

Your Help Desk shows all reports posted by your resellers and their customers. Your reseller's Help Desk shows only reports posted by himself or herself and his or her customers. A client's Help Desk shows only reports posted by himself or herself and domain administrator's of his or her sites, if domain administration privileges were granted to the client's users. The domain owner's Help Desk shows only reports posted by himself or herself and by e-mail users under his or her domain.

To configure Help Desk and allow your customers post problem reports through the control panel:

  1. Go to Help Desk > General Settings.
  2. Select the Allow customers to submit tickets check box.
  3. Select the trouble ticket queue, priority and category that will be offered to your customers as the default choice.

    When users post a new ticket, they can specify the order in which they would prefer their problems to be resolved (queue), the priority of their requests (priority), and the category to which the problem is related (category). The queue, priority and category are abstract entities: they have no effect on the system, but they can help you decide what problems to resolve in the first place. There are three predefined queues and priority levels and nine predefined categories including Database, DNS, FTP, General, Hosting, Mail, Mailing Lists, Web Applications, and Tomcat Java. You can remove these items and add your own.

  4. Click Switch On in the Tools group, then click OK.

If you wish to allow users to submit problem reports by e-mail:

  1. Create a POP3 mailbox with an e-mail address like helpdesk@your-domain.com or anything you like.
  2. Configure the help desk to periodically retrieve problem reports from that mailbox and post them to your Help Desk.
  3. Inform your customers of the Help Desk's e-mail address.

To allow users to submit problem reports to Help Desk by e-mail:

  1. Go to Help Desk > Mail Gate Settings.
  2. Specify the following settings:
  3. Click Switch On in the Tools group and click OK.

Now your server is set up and you can do the following: