Linux Virtuozzo Templates

Virtuozzo application templates are RPM packages which, when installed on a node, allow easy deployment of an application in as many Containers as required, saving a lot of critical system resources like disk space. You can obtain the Plesk templates at the Plesk website, or download them using the Virtuozzo command-line utility call "vzup2date -z" (Virtuozzo 4 and later) or by means of yum on Virtuozzo.

Versioned and version-free templates

Starting with Plesk 10.4, Plesk ships two sets of EZ templates for each Plesk release: major-version templates, and version-free templates. Both provide the same software components, the only difference between them is that template updates are installed when a Container is updated:

• Provider-controlled versioned templates automatically get all the latest updates and upgrades released for the major version of Plesk.

  For example, if the versioned template of Plesk 10 (pp10) is installed in a Container, the vzpkg update <CT_ID> command will update it to the latest released version of Plesk 10.x.x, be it 10.0.1 or 10.1.0.
  More specifically, versioned templates perform upgrades allowed by a typical Plesk license. This license allows you to perform upgrades within the second major version number. For example, from 10.1 to 10.2, but not from 10.4 to 11.0.

• Version-free auto-upgrade templates get all updates and upgrades regardless of the Plesk license key. In other words, such templates automatically update to the last available Plesk version regardless of its number once this version in released. For example, this can be an upgrade from 10.3 to 10.4 or from 10.4 to 11.0. Note that if your Plesk license does not allow complex upgrades, you will need to obtain a new license key after each such upgrade.

  For example, if the version-free base template of Plesk (pp) is installed in a Container (for example, 10.x.x), the vzpkg update <CT_ID> command will update it to the latest released version of Plesk x.x.x, be it 10.x.x or 11.x.x.

You can tell versioned templates and version-free ones apart from their names: The name prefix of the first type contains the major version (pp12), while the latter does not contain any version numbers (pp).

Toggling auto-detection of EZ templates

Virtuozzo 4.0 and later versions can discover EZ templates in a container and perform automatic actions depending on the templates. This feature provides opportunities for business automation software (like PBAs) to automatically find products installed in a container and start billing the container owner.

The discovery algorithm is straightforward: If the system finds all packages included in an EZ template, it considers the template to be installed. The major drawback of this approach is that Plesk 9.x and SMB are very close to each other in terms of packages, so the auto-detection engine can make incorrect decisions. For example, if only one of the applications is present in a container, the system considers that both templates are installed. The most noticeable outcome of this detection problem is that the system fails to update both applications and set proper billing for them.

It is possible to stop the auto-detection if you use the billing automation software or if you want to install tightly bound Plesk products. To do this, modify the /etc/vztt/vztt.conf file by setting APP_TEMPLATE_AUTODETECTION=no.

Shipped templates

Since both versioned and version-free sets of templates provide the same components, we will list only the versioned ones for the simplicity sake.

The following EZ templates are shipped for Plesk 12.5: